Postcards from SF, Day 2 (Hike)

On the day of the wedding, R* and T had arranged a hike, complete with box lunches and string backpacks to carry them in. We went in groups, but at least a couple of the groups met at the top (Hill 88). It was a fairly strenuous hike, but there were some lovely things to see. This is only a small selection of the many photos we took!

Postcards from SF, Day 1 (8/30)

I've been back from R*'s wedding in SF almost a week and haven't managed to make a post, so here's a quick one about the trip.

We had to get up early on Saturday for the flight and were delayed in Minneapolis where we had a connection. Airport CNN made us both gag, being non-stop coverage of McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Which btw I consider a very scary choice. We finally did make it to SFO though where we succeeded in finding the bride's sister, with whom we were sharing a van to the hostel. This is the view we saw out the door.



It was amazing seeing people from high school, people I hadn't laid eyes on in about a dozen years.



R* and T (the groom and bride) had arranged a bus into town for the rehearsal dinner. On the way over the famous bridge, I tried to snap a picture. Not the best picture ever, but it did come out kind of interesting I thought.



Here are the bride and her two sisters at the restaurant, three graces. I liked her sisters quite a lot, and her too of course. They are such quirky and interesting people all.



Dinner companions. They are so photogenic!!

News Items

I don't know if I mentioned it, but both hermit crabs (Pokey and Intrepid) have been moulting almost the whole time since I got them. When they moult, they bury themselves in sand and don't come out at all for a month or so. I have been worrying that they were dead, and have been a bit neglectful of my misting duties too. Yesterday, I thought to myself, I should really mist the tank. While I was doing that, I picked up the coconut house that Pocket of Bolts made for Intrepid and... he was in it! He was very grouchy to be disturbed at noontime, when he's no doubt sound asleep, but I put some food in his dish and put him on it as instructed. He moved off it very quickly, and was soon hiding again. I worry about him being so uninterested in food. Maybe he doesn't like the food I bought. But anyway, at least he's alive! Although this morning when I looked for him he was extremely well hidden, maybe buried back down in the sand again? Anyway, I couldn't find him, so I hope he's all right.

The other bit of news is that last night I decided to go to the yoga class at our next door gym. Pocket of Bolts was going out drinking with one of his buddies, and I thought it might be a good chance to try out this yoga thing everyone seems so enthusiastic about. Of course I had tried the rather sedate yoga class my parents take, but that was more or less like an hour of sleepy stretching as far as I was concerned. This yoga class, however, was more like a workout! There was much twisting up of my body and doing of strange things. I felt like a pretzel! But all the weight-lifting I've been doing recently has helped a lot I think, because although my muscles definitely protested, I was able to do most of the things. Afterwards I felt very loose and relaxed and pleased. Pocket of Bolts was pleased too; not sure why, but he likes the idea of having a yoga-doing wife, and has been encouraging me to go. I was shy about it, but once I finally got brave enough to try it I liked it a lot.

And the Weekend's Over

Saturday night was the last installment of our social marathon. We were invited to a party at the house of another of my office-mates, Y. No other office-mates showed up though; it was mostly her friends there. That meant a lot of meeting new people--which doesn't actually bother me. For all these office-mate events, the stakes are low as far as I'm concerned. I do my best to meet and talk to people, but don't feel especially bad if I fail.

Actually the circumstances on Saturday were very favorable for meeting and talking. Y has a tiny little apartment to the north of us, and she was serving a late dinner of curry and a Japanese sort of potato salad. It was tasty. We sat on the floor and ate it. More people kept trickling in. The apartment was an oven. The elevator was broken and it was on the fourth floor, so there was much trooping up and down for smoking. (I dodn't smoke, but since everyone went down, I did too.) The conversation turned toward bizarre injuries and physical anomalies. One woman was born with an extra rib and had had to have it surgically removed because it was pinching a nerve. Another had accidentally ripped open his palette with a pencil. Those were the two most memorable. How can you not become friendly and amused when you're talking about this sort of thing?

The evening ended with a watermelon bashing, kind of like a Japanese pinata. We carried the watermelon out to a strip of grass near an underpass and took turns bashing it with a stick, blindfolded while everyone else gave directions. It took a long time to really smash open the watermelon, in part due to the inadequacy of the stick. But that meant everyone had a turn.

When the thing was open, we ate it with our hands. Then Pocket of Bolts and some of the other guys started using parts of the rind like a board you'd break in karate. When you punch a watermelon rind, juice and watermelon go everywhere!!! We were all covered in it. There was much laughing. You have to picture this being around midnight. We decided to head home after that (way past our bedtimes) but it was a really fun time all in all.

Yesterday I didn't do anything except play games and do a small chunk of writing. I am asymptotically approaching the end of this chapter but can't seem to go the last little step.

Today classes start for PoB. He left very early, as he teaches at 9 AM. I had breakfast but am getting off to a later start, heading down to U of C to use the library and possibly have coffee with one of the grad students there. It will be fun to talk shop again after all this time. I've discovered that it's better to miss the rush hour traffic when going down there though. I may not be able to avoid it coming back but at least I can avoid it going down there.

Social Marathon Continues

Dinner for six chez Zapaper:

Hummus and tapenade
Cheese
Rye crackers and pita triangles
Watermelon wedges
Spanakopita
Salade nicoise (minus fish)
Stuffed peaches

Pocket of Bolts did most of the cooking, I should say right off. I had sole responsibility for the dessert, which turned out okay but would have been much much better with ice-cream. I'll have to remember that. The salade nicoise, which we hadn't made before, turned out really pleasant and interesting, much hardier than the green or Greek salad we usually serve, and more interesting at least to me.

It was one of those dinner parties where you get behind and then pray that the guests arrive fashionably late. Instead, they arrived 10 minutes early, leaving PoB and I taking turns dashing around to change out of filthy sweat-soaked clothes while the other cut up pitas and poured drinks. The floors were supposed to get mopped but didn't. The spanakopita could have been baked in advance (so the oven wouldn't have to be heating up the house) but wasn't. It was a hotter day than we'd thought it would be, and we have AC only in our bedroom. But within those constraints, the party was moderately successful.

We got to use our new wedding dishes. PoB did most of the talking and I did most of the bustling around (I like it that way). That makes it a little hard though for me to evaluate whether they had a good time. Anyway, it was PoB's colleagues and whether or not they had a good time, I feel that our duties were discharged. Everyone left a little on the early side, but it was quite hot in the place and I would have been inclined to too...

This was Thursday. Yesterday I got to meet another blogger, Repressed Librarian. ComeBackNikki made the arrangements (yay CBN!), and it was a really fun time for me. I realize how little time I spend with other women. I mean, of course it's related to how little time I spend with other people generally, but hanging out with women is quite different from hanging out with guy friends--the kinds of things you do and talk about--even with people who, in some sense, I just met, it felt really relaxing and good. Although I was slightly haunted by the worry that I was repeating things they already knew from my blog. Probably I did, but they were patient.

Another newsworthy event was that I ate a cupcake. It was an Almond Joy cupcake, and I already forgot the name of the bakery, but getting to eat a cupcake was bliss. I worked out yesterday, but did not even try to count points. PoB and I are both slipping a little in this regard...

Last night, because we just haven't been having enough excitement lately (ha ha) we went to a movie night hosted by one of my former office-mates. We came in time for half of Muppets' Treasure Island and watched all of Team America: World Police (made by the creators of South Park). Both absurd and funny, with a good measure of offensive thrown in. Unfortunately, the host had a case of food-poisoning which made it all a little surreal. We were drinking beer and eating pizza, while he was nibbling toast and periodically disappearing into the bathroom for extended periods of time. The thing about a movie night is that the show can go on with you or without you, so it was fine. Still, he wasn't quite his usual jolly self!

Today we have been very extremely lazy. It's incredibly hot and muggy and I have simply camped out in the bedroom with the AC on. PoB tried to hold out in the living room but gave up after a while. We're going to a party later tonight, the last item on the social calendar until next weekend, but we apparently don't have energy for anything else until then!

Concentrated Socializing

I have been lame about blogging. Also for that matter about cleaning--presumably having used up all my enthusiasm on the blog post, I promptly lost enthusiasm for doing it in real life. That's okay, today's the day for a whole-house cleaning. Because... this is marathon socializing weekend. Starting yesterday.

Yesterday, my friend from high school, R*, was in Chi-town with his wife T and it was his birthday. They usually live in Berlin, but they travel a lot. It was a rare treat to see them here! Actually, they used to live in Chicago, so they know more about the city than I do. A group of us went to the Chicago Pizza and Grinder Company, a place I have never been before. Tasty Mediterranean bread and salad, followed by a funny inverted bowl pizza, also tasty. Also, most of the people in the group I had never met before, friends of R*'s from various times and places who happened to be here or who live here. Somehow it was all the more jolly for me because of that though. R*'s enthusiasm for people, pizza, and life in general removed any anxiety I may have had.

After eating way too much, I ended up walking for a long time with the slowly diminishing group--nearly two hours! There was so much to say and chatter about. It reminded me very much of an earlier period in my life. Also made me wish we lived closer to R* and T; they are such fun people, a barrel of laughs. Pocket of Bolts and I are going to R* and T's wedding (marriage celebration technically since they're already legally married) in a week or so. That's in the Bay area, a mini-vacation in the last little bit the summer.

Today, though, the project is having two pairs of PoB's colleagues over to our house for dinner. It pretty much strains our capacity for entertaining, but at least we have an adequate supply of matching dishes. So today it's mostly house-cleaning and cooking, with a bit of work thrown in, in the early hours.

Cleaning Rotation

Our household chores have naturally fallen into a fairly comfortable division wherein Pocket of Bolts takes out of the garbage, does the laundry, does (maybe slightly more than) half the dishes and cooking. Meanwhile, I clean the bathroom and sweep and mop floors. This has been a stable division between us ever since we started living together. PoB does his jobs whenever they need doing. I try to do my jobs once a week, but sometimes I fail to and usually I don't do every single room, especially since our apartment now is the biggest we've lived in.

A few weeks ago, when our place was pretty dirty and guests were coming, I tried to clean the whole apartment. By clean I mean just: tidy, dust, and do floors (and of course clean toilet, tub, sink, and mirrors in the bathroom; counters and stove-top in the kitchen). Mind you the place was pretty filthy, and I am a perfectionist cleaner when I get started. But HOURS later, I was exhausted and still hadn't finished two of the rooms. We both enjoy living in a tidier environment, but my marathon cleaning day made me realize I had been putting off or failing to do my jobs because the task seemed so huge. Doing a proper job is obviously not the work of single day.

So a little over a week ago I decided to change my strategy. The house has seven rooms (counting the long hall and the big hall closet) and the week has seven days. So I decided I would do a small dose of cleaning each day. So far this has been working really well! It's a good thing to do when I feel like procrastinating, and I count it into my nutritional economy as light exercise so it even allows me to eat more. (Always a plus!) The house has been cleaner, so much so that it was difficult to restart the cycle yesterday--it just didn't seem dirty enough! Cleaning is more rewarding when the area you're cleaning is really dirty, since it feels like it makes more of a difference. But on the other hand, it's much easier if the area is NOT dirty because less scrubbing is required.

Another advantage is that doing the cleaning in small bits allows me to concentrate on things I would ordinarily pass over--reorganizing the shelves, washing and scrubbing inside the garbage can, mopping the spot underneath the arm-chair, etc. My mom always says that cleaning is a meditation. If so, my mantra has usually been, "It's not about achieving perfection, but about preventing accumulation." Recently, though, it feels like perfection might also be almost within my grasp.

Aren't I becoming quite the housewife?! (Just kidding, Pocket of Bolts. I am still working on my dissertation, honest.) Actually, though, speaking of being a wife... after more than a month of procrastination and wavering, I finally took the first step in changing my name to Mrs. Pocket of Bolts. Namely, I filled out a form and took it with my passport and marriage certificate to the Social Security Administration. It was a quick and easy procedure after the hour or so of waiting. I had to sign with my new name...! I have practiced on three or four different occasions, but it's still a shocking feeling. Oh well, for now I'll just think of it as being like a spy. Signing "someone else's" name is, like, part of my tradecraft.

Our New Gym

[A guest post from Pocket of Bolts, at the request of Zapaper]

We've joined a new gym. I don't know how ZP feels about it, but I like it: nice place, good workout program, etc. But... well, it's a... how do I put this? A yuppie gym.

So I was leaving the locker room today, after having groomed myself in the "Fully-appointed executive locker rooms, with complimentary towels, grooming aids and accessories", and paused to note the enormous flat-screen plasma TV in the waiting room between the men and women's locker room. Tuned to CNN, it was reporting that Russia had invaded Georgia. Nuclear armed superpower, invading possibly also nuclear armed breakaway former Soviet republic? Pardon the technical terms, but: my nuts tightened up. And as I contemplate what will happen--the President is issuing statements, etc--a woman walks out of the locker room, sighs loudly, and shouts "Hello? It's the Olympics? Why aren't the Olympics on?", and angrily changes the channel.

That's our new gym. I occasionally regret not joining the insane bodybuilder gym around the corner, but I suppose that they don't actually have flatscreen TVs, so I wouldn't have known. Right?

Updates

Last Friday I had my first-ever blogger meet-up, with ComeBackNikki from 10Eleven. We had great Ethiopian food and somehow ended up talking for four hours! That was really fun. Among other things, I learned a lot about the teaching scene at various places. Wow! Does everyone work 300 times harder than I do, or just most people? I felt I had a very soft life.

While I am updating about recent events, I should mention that when my college friend and Pocket of Bolts' grad school friends were in town last week (Tuesday), we finally managed to go on the architecture boat tour! I highly recommend it, even if you're not an architecture fan. The boat goes fast enough that you actually only get a bite-sized snippet of information about each building. You get an overall sense of architecture along the river and in the city generally, but no boring long diatribes or anything. And now I feel like most of the buildings on the tour are at least acquaintances if not actually friends. Even though it was like 90+ degrees, the guy talking was so interesting we didn't even notice we were hot. As soon as we got off the boat, though, we had to retreat to an air-conditioned bar.

After that, we did the obligatory amble through Millennium to see the Bean. That is such a fun structure to play with, photographically! Here's the whole group of us.

Afterwards, we ended up all taking naps on benches under the trees. It's interesting how having friends in town makes one feel so happy--connections are strengthened when distance might threaten to erode them--and at the same time so exhausted. Our daily routine is a fragile and really under-appreciated thing. Getting up at a certain time, cooking and eating our relatively humble and inexpensive meals, doing our work and our work-outs, going to bed at our usual time... all of these things got disrupted, and as happy as we were to see our friends, we were also happy to get back to normal. Given that we're all academics, I suppose it's possible they felt the same!

Storm Tonight

There is a fantastic thunderstorm in Chicago tonight, and in particular MY part of Chicago. Even in the tiny bit of sky enclosed by our courtyard we saw very many bright and well-defined lightnings. Rain is coming down in sheets, and the sky looks almost white with the constant lightnings above the clouds.

We had been planning an after-dinner constitutional to bookstore, but that turned out to be highly impractical. We turned back when pelted by the first drops of rain and opted for a workout instead--the new gym being so close and all. All the satellite TV stations were out for a while, but everything else was in good working order, including the delicious steam room.

I burned enough calories that I got to have frozen yogurt with sprinkles for dessert, and we sat and watched the lightnings, listened to the river-flow sound of the rain. It's been a really nice evening in fact!

Sketch Diary

The past little while has been quite hectic. I'll try to write more about it later, but I don't have much time now either. I had meant to have the sketch diary be a regular Monday thing, but then I couldn't manage to do a post last Monday. You might also notice the lack of any drawings between 7/25 and 8/2--we had a house-guest, and then were recovering from that. Anyway, I'll maybe post these every Monday or every other Monday depending on how things go.


This is from a lovely bouquet that Pocket of Bolts got for me. It's a hard discipline to draw flowers without color because the color seems so much like THE point in drawing them!! But it's probably good practice.


This is copied from a great picture book that I have, called The Arrival, by Shaun Tan. It's a great fantastical book about the immigrant experience, which has no words at all (the caption is just made up by me) and is very much about communication without language. Also features a lot of wonderful weird creatures.


These are growing in our backyard on very tall stalks, in a variety of colors. They seem like some kind of hibiscus, but I can't tell exactly. VERY hard to draw without colors.



Copied from a National Geographic article on the mass extinction of amphibians. I can't say how sad the extinction of amphibians makes me. Also, drawing frog fingers/toes makes me realize how very unlike our fingers and toes they are, and in general how really alien frogs are in their structure. But that's awesome.



Copied from a picture of a fourth century Chinese tile. The silly cartoonishness is in the original too, so it wasn't just me!

Organization

Organizing things is the key to making any progress! This isn't for any practical reason, but rather for aesthetic reasons. It's not that I couldn't find what I want without devising a system. It's that without a system I just don't want to find anything. It's a strange realization. I wonder if I'm in the wrong line of work, given that I find the system (the form) more appealing than the stuff that the system contains (my actual scholarship). Or maybe it's just a phase.

By the way, Intrepid the hermit crab has now joined his Pokey companion in the invisible world of moultitude, which I should probably be pleased about (they find the environment I provided for them to be congenial to their needs) but instead feel a little bit abandoned. I'm trying to figure out if there's any reason to keep putting out food. Probably not, right? But I guess I will have to keep checking to make sure they haven't come out yet.

Sketch Diary

Lately I have had lots of stress and one thing I find that comforts me and helps put me in a productive frame of mind is making little pictures. I won't say I'm learning to draw because that implies that I'm learning from someone or something. I'm just practicing drawing, which I have never been all that good at. Here are some recent sketches though.

My first drawing in a very long time. I was quite dissatisfied but Pocket of Bolts liked it a lot. After he liked it, I liked it more too. It is clumsy, but looks like I did that on purpose!

Same shell as above. For several days, Intrepid spent the daytime wedged with his whole shell into the hole of this bigger shell. It was really funny!

Copied from a National Geographic photo, while I couldn't sleep one night.

Practicing drawing "shiny." The teapot my students gave me.

Intrepid and Pokey

After weeks of hesitation, I have finally taken the plunge and acquired my first pets since the ill-fated Chinese turtles. Yes, if you can believe it, I was anxious about whether I was up to the responsibility of raising... hermit crabs. Finally, I decided it was silly to have a terrarium all set up with nothing in it, so yesterday I bravely acquired the little critters.

It's funny how from the minute I put them in their new home they showed extremely different "personalities"--I mean, if something can have personality in a brain the size of a pin-head. The smaller one ("Intrepid") literally hit the ground running, explored all over the cage immediately, and did some death-defying stunts on some of the taller shells. The larger one ("Pokey") didn't even venture to put his legs out of his shell for about five minutes. I was worried that it had died in transit! When it finally did get moving, it retreated immediately under the huge shell I gave them to hide in, and has not been seen since. (Intrepid disappeared during the day today but has made a few more exploratory laps of the cage this evening.) I am excited to think Pokey might possibly be molting. When I peeked under the shell, it was buried down in pretty far.

Pocket of Bolts just thinks they're feeling a little hot. So are we! Heat really doesn't agree with me. Have been huddled up in the bedroom, the only room so far that has an air-conditioner, for most of the day.

Muscles

This is a picture of me taken in Hawaii, but I had to put it up here because I think it makes me look unusually strong! I think it was just an accident of posture, since I generally look softer and rounder. Maybe not for long though!

Yesterday I mentioned how my fitness rating was so excellent at all? Today I had to pay for it. I went and did the first workout routine as recommended by the computer program (based on my goals, test results, demographic info, etc.). It turned out to be really hard. What was supposed to be about a one hour workout plus some cardio ended up taking me more like two hours. And I am extremely sore.

Still, it was a fun way to do exercise. Like weight watchers, it appeals to the compulsive record-keeping side of me. The computer spits out a workout card, you jump through all the hoops it gives you, writing down the results (how many reps you managed) and give it back to them. It gets put back in, and contributes to (at least one is led to believe) further customization of the next workout. The desire for completeness even forces me to do the hated ab exercises.

The important role of mirrors in weight-lifting areas: I sat tediously pumping little bits of iron and studying my face and figure. I look strong! I asked Pocket of Bolts, what if I get too muscly and it is gross? He says it is probably not a worry, but he'll be sure to tell me if I do. I don't want to be a female body-builder or anything. But it's nice to contemplate being a really strong woman. There's really not much of a down-side, at least for now!

Ikea Nesting Instinct

We have been back in our little home for a few weeks now. I would say we are both alternating between bursts of nesty domesticity and occasional moments of post-wedding blues. It's hard to go back to normal after such a lot of big and intense events. Setting up our little nest is a fun distraction though. One of the things we talked about during our honeymoon was how to make our space more productive, and we concluded that we need to change around the furniture in the study. You might think this is a strangely mundane topic to discuss on our honeymoon but actually it was a really good time to talk about many aspects of our "new" life. I mean, it's not like things have changed drastically, but it's true that we both do feel a little different about our lives together now, and that we want our circumstance to reflect that.

Anyway, the long and short of it was that we got the IGo car for the afternoon and went to Ikea. As usual we ended up with more stuff than we intended, but we had a great time. The pictures are us doing the traditional round of Ikea furniture assembly. I particularly like my pigeon toes holding down the frame of the small drawer assembly, and the slightly crazed look in Pocket of Bolts' eyes as he ponders the smaller pieces of our new kitchen island. The kitchen island is great! It doubles our counter space and gives us room for the new appliances we have as well.

Other things we've done include finally joining the gym next door. It's expensive compared to the school gym, but can't be beat for convenience. I mean, it's in the next building over and is open 24 hours during the week! I think we will especially appreciate it in the winter, and if I take advantage of some of the free classes it will help get me out of the house--now that I'm not working at an external job and could probably become a shut-in if I don't watch out. I had a fitness test yesterday and I was overall "Excellent" (there is only one rank above "Excellent" and that is "Superior", but I have a long way to go)! It's true that I am feeling in pretty good shape lately. Pocket of Bolts is too. Hawaii, far from being an episode of total decadence as we had feared, turned out to be a very active sort of vacation with so much hiking and swimming that it nearly counter-balanced our self-indulgent eating. So we are excited about being healthy and domestic, and I am actually managing a bit of enthusiasm for dissertation work as well. It's not easy, mind you.

Well, more soon.

Postcards from Big Island, Day 5

Black sand beach.

Actual LAVA coming out of the mountain!

Postcards from Big Island, Day 4

Postcards from Big Island, Day 3

Postcards From Big Island, Day 2

Postcards From Big Island, Day 1

Postcards From Maui, Day 4

Postcards From Maui, Day 3

Traffic Jammer

Driving back north toward Lahaina, traffic slowed to a crawl. We were tired after our long hike, but okay, good-naturedly snapping pictures and listening to our favorite island radio station. (We developed a favorite early on; it has a certain parody quality like the radio in Grand Theft Auto Vice City.) Then the radio announcer said something like, "If you're driving along the road south of Lahaina and are wondering why traffic is so jammed up, it's because there's a guy--or girl?!--in a bikini out on the rocks playing drums, and people are slowing down to look at it. If you're down there and you are interested, just pull over! Don't slow down the traffic." No sooner did we hear that, then we actually saw the phenomenon she was referring to! It made the island feel like quite a small place. Below is a detail photo.

Postcards from Maui, Day 2

Postcards From Maui, Day 1

Wedding Eve (1 day)

There have been many things to write about these past weeks, but at this time more than any other, I have been too busy living to think about recording. It has been a very vivid time, especially the past few days: staying in a hotel long enough almost to call it home, having all together these different sets of relatives and friends, being faced with crises and adventures and things that need to be arranged, trying to see everyone all at once. Imagine, today I saw a high school friend I haven't seen face to face for some twelve or thirteen years! And family members I haven't seen for years either... as well as members of my new family whom I had never met. Having my mom near has been somehow quite indispensable psychologically. Even if it's just little things, knowing that I can run over to her room or call her on her cell somehow makes all the difference. The same is of course true about my dad, whose presence is comforting and supporting in quite another way, but maybe it's a deep strange feature of impending marriage that I want very much to run to her and be soothed.

Actually today was quite a relaxing day. We had the rehearsal yesterday, and that was very stressful, very heavy somehow. I can see why people have them, but it was a difficult thing to do. Maybe some of the nervousness will be dissipated. I have heard that when the bride gets married she is often very absent and numb during the actual ceremony, but I didn't feel that way during the rehearsal. I was totally and almost excruciatingly there! We are going to say our vows holding hands. Mom commented that we are glad we are holding on to each other (or holding each other up!). I think we were both a little overwhelmed by even the dry run. Today, though, we went on a long hike with a large group of friends and had dinner at a pub afterwards. There was a lot of jollity, different friends leaving and arriving, a very kicking back mellow kind of night. Pocket of Bolts and I got along quite well considering...! Possibly I was a bit peevish but at least not a total basket case.

I told Pocket of Bolts that the wedding experience is partly for me the process of learning how to be not a princess but a queen. I feel that, a gradual increasing feeling of dignity and gravity. It is not a role that comes naturally, one I am having to grow into, but I think I am succeeding in doing so. Except at odd moments. It is grand to have supportive family and good friends around me, people I care about and whose presence is simply pleasing. One thing that really pleases me best is the guest list, the people who ended up being here. It is marvelous that they are here, every last one.

Well, I must go to my parents' room, as we are spending the night apart. It seems silly, but at the same time one of those traditions that we'll only have this one chance to experience. I presume it is intended to prevent us from having some stress-related fight...! In any case, I am slipping out of the room now, while Pocket of Bolts is down the hall having a last round (or many) with the jolly company of our friends. When next I write I suppose I will be someone new, but then I am already starting to feel like someone new.

Picnic by the Lake (11 days)

Today we went for a picnic by the lake. We ate watermelon slices, feta, olives, hummus, and pitas. Also we had a water-bottle full of "grape juice." Here is a picture of the handsome guy I am marrying. I think he looks quite dashing!

It's been a quiet day. I spent all morning at home doing items from my to-do list, mostly wedding-related. Small last details. Most of them are not as stressful as those big decisions. Just things that have to get done.

One thing I did do was type up the vows. Using a template of course, but with a few touches of my own. It was strangely moving, even just going over them carefully. I got all teary. Pocket of Bolts got teary too when he read over them. Same with my mom. Maybe we're getting all the teariness out of the way now so we can say these things in proper clear voices during the actual occasion!

Pocket of Bolts went in to school for a lunch meeting, so I was on my own for lunch. I managed to make an amazingly tasty one:

1/2 cup (dry) whole wheat penne, cooked

1 original boca burger, heated on a pan with cooking spray until browned, then chopped into small pieces
1 t olive oil heated in a pan with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper
1 c kale, sauteed in oil
1/4 of a red onion, chopped and thrown in with the kale, also the boca
1/2 c very ordinary plain spaghetti sauce, poured over the sauteed mixture with 1/2 c water and heated thoroughly

Sauce poured over pasta, so elegant and tasty, a perfect 6 point lunch (i.e., around 300-350 calories).

My Chinese friend called me just as I was about to leave the house. She's in Germany now, soon to start a PhD program. She was very curious about and interested in the wedding. I talked to her for some time. My Chinese is imperfect, but still good enough to get through a conversation. I really should work on it more.

Spent all afternoon shopping but unproductively. The lastest fashions don't suit me very well, and I'm just kind of waiting around for them to change. Pocket of Bolts found some interesting groomsman gifts, so that was something!

Then evening, our dinner picnic by the lake. This is Pocket of Bolts striking a pose, like Monsieur Crevelle in Balzac's Cousin Bette. Me looking oddly pliable. Lately I have a million and a half freckles, despite diligent application of 50 spf sunblock. It's just hard to stay out of the sun, especially on gorgeous days like this.

I suppose it's time to turn in. Pocket of Bolts is already sound asleep. I have been up answering e-mails from the last few people on the guest-list. I sent them little reminder e-mails and am fascinated by the types of responses they send, all very quickly, several with a story. How complicated lives are; each circle of like a machine with so many moving parts, and they move in impossibly complex ways, caught up in the gears of other circles which in turn are turned by other gears. I sometimes think it's amazing that anyone comes together or stays in contact at all.

Quick Pic

Here's me giving the talk at grad school grad conference. It's a LOUSY-ass picture, but anyway here's the sole record of me doing something that most of you have never seen me doing. (Choose one or more:) Giving a talk. Wearing a blazer. :)

My Old Burrow (15 days)

I am posting, just briefly, from my old burrow in grad school library. It's strange to be here. I came for a grad conference, but tacked on an extra day in case I wanted to meet with people or take care of loose ends--just a way of making the trip more relaxed and productive. Now I'm a bit homesick and I miss Pocket of Bolts, but overall it was a really good choice. I've found a ton of interesting stuff in the well-stocked library, got a lot of electronic goodies from one of my younger classmates, and reconnected with one of my old grad school buddies that I had drifted out of touch with. It's a nice feeling.

The first time I came back here after being in China, I felt incredibly disconnected and ill-at-ease. But maybe because this time I'm here for a conference or maybe because I have finally started to get to know all the younglings, I have felt a little more comfortable.

Last night I stayed with one of my bridesmaids and her significant other. They live in the same housing complex PoB and I used to live in, and it's one of those where all the units are either identical or mirror. My friend's unit is identical, and also we gave them our old dining room table when we left. So being in their place is extremely nostalgic, a whole complicated set of memories from more than two years ago, when the relationship between PoB was much younger than it is now!

I didn't sleep very well (too much caffeine I think), worrying pointlessly about things that turned out to be small and trivial when I woke up and actually thought about them. Around 6:30 this morning I went out for a run. I ran the old loop that we used to do when we lived here. I remember it being so hard! But my body is such a machine now. I finished the loop, even did an extra curlicue, and was still ready for more. So I ran down to the nearby canal, a much longer run. Everything was so interesting, though, that I barely felt it. Honeysuckle is in bloom here right now, and there's a lot of humidity in the air, making the smell of it very heavy and thick. It's not hot, however. It is very late-spring, everything lush and green.

Well, I must go catch my plane now. Every time I come here I vow that I should really spend more time here, that I would get a lot more work done if I did. But then when I'm in Chicago and contemplating leaving there, I feel that it's all a dreadful mistake. It's strange belonging (and not belonging) in two different places.