It's Only A Paper Rose

On a whim, I went to Los Angeles last week.

Well, it wasn't quite on a whim. I'd been daydreaming about a trip during much of the pandemic—I've made three good friends over the past year, and all of them happened to live in the city. And I hadn't visited California in nearly a decade, despite being quite fond of it (I don't know if it was living in Sacramento as a young kid or having family history in the area, but it's always felt weirdly like home to me, even though I have no desire to live there). So, when Alaska Airlines sent me an email a few days after my second vaccination shot offering ridiculously cheap fares from Chicago to LA, the serendipity seemed too strong to ignore. So I bought the fare, booked a convertible for the week (via Turo, because rental cars are insanely pricey right now), made plans with my friend Myra to stay with her, and a couple weeks later I was jetting across the country.

We road-tripped up to Tracy (of tumblr infamy) to see for ourselves if it was as creepy as the post promises. Verdict: actually, yes. Nothing overtly dangerous-feeling happened while we were there, but that distinct sensation of something being a little off was absolutely present, and occasionally spilled over into interactions with the townsfolk, many of whom seemed to nurse that sort of quiet desperation and hopelessness that I've seen a lot in rural areas. If I ever write a Supernatural case fic, I'm 100% setting it there; you couldn't have paid me enough to go wandering through the town after dark.

From Tracy, we drove to Santa Carla Cruz, which is actually where my parents met in college (as the bookshop clerk told me when I mentioned this: "Oh, so you're banana slug spawn!") We did wander around a bit downtown after dark, and found dinner at a sketchy-seeming but (it turned out) thoroughly delicious Greek takeout place. The vibe was interesting; a fair number of homeless folks, some people making deals, the bar crowd (fairly low-key as it was a Thursday night); there was a mild air of menace, including one particularly creepy moment where we were passing by a parking garage that had some kind of ruckus emanating from it, of the sort where it's hard to tell if it's laughter or screaming. Interestingly, when we came down the next day to check out the bookshop, the same mildly-sketchy downtown street had practically transformed into a pleasantly shady avenue of shops; there was still a fairly significant countercultural presence (street musicians, probably-unlicensed vendors, etc.) but it was much friendlier. More fodder for writing in the future, I suspect...

Other highlights included a lovely lunch with my friend Jay, and taking my friend Rebekah up Mulholland Drive at night; the views are every bit as amazing as advertised. I also got to see my friend April, who's now running two businesses (a realty and an AirBNB management company) and trying to find good employees to help her with them...I have zero intention of moving to LA (I quite like my life here in Chicago), but it's nice to know that if something goes pear-shaped, I have opportunities elsewhere. Really, I think that's half the fun of travel; getting to try on new identities for a while, see who I become in a different context, which parts of me stay the same and which alter. It gives me perspective on who I am now, and lets me choose whether I want to keep that identity or make changes to it.

One thing that made me laugh a little bit was Myra's combined confusion/awe at how people on the street would just...talk to me. And I'd talk back. I'd never really thought of it as being anything that strange; I've intentionally cultivated a certain approachability as I've gotten older, but she's not the first one to comment on it. (Once, not long after I started dyeing my hair bright colors, Brian and I were wandering through Bisbee during an art walk night and three different people commented on it in a stretch of five minutes or so—I remember him turning to me and asking "is it always like this?" and it took me a minute to realize what he meant.) Myra, by contrast, is physically much smaller and distinctly uncomfortable around strangers/in crowds, though she said she liked being with me because she got to absorb some of the positive feelings from casual interactions without having to actually interact at all.

In any case, now I'm home, and it feels comforting rather than confining. I'm going to roll up my sleeves and try writing again this afternoon; it's been tough lately, I suspect due to pandemic burnout. But after spending a week seeing new places, meeting new people, and being (a little bit of) a different person myself, I think it'll come a little easier.

Sweden was, as expected, lovely. Petra really went out of her way to make us feel welcome. I admit, I was slightly concerned at the thought of the three of us squeezing into a small apartment for ten days, especially since she was sleeping on her couch in order to cede us her bed. Fortunately, her apartment was actually pretty good-sized, and (as I had reason to discover when I came down with the airport plague on the trip there) her couch was similarly generous in its proportions, as well as comfortable. So we all managed just fine.

What I didn't expect was precisely how similar Sweden's climate is to Alaska's. In retrospect, it's not exactly surprising - similar latitudes, similar climates, similar geological history with glaciers and whatnot from the Ice Age carving out the landscape - but it felt downright strange to be walking along a forested path, thinking about how pleasantly familiar everything looked/smelled, only to hear a bird call I didn't recognize or see an oak tree growing amongst the birches, and realize that I was halfway across the globe, after all. (There was also, I was amused to note, a similar variability in weather; from windy to pouring down rain to sunny, all within ten minutes.)

Given that we were in Europe, where the history comes from, we spent a goodly amount of time going out to old fortresses and houses. One of my favorites was Gunnebo House and Gardens, a country estate with a beautiful house commissioned by a merchant who had made it big during the start of the Industrial Revolution. (Luckily for us, we were the only people looking for a tour in our time slot, so the guide was happy to give us the tour in English.) The architect who designed it was something of a perfectionist, and it shows; the neoclassical lines and symmetry are just beautiful, if taken to occasional extremes (the guide pointed out numerous blind doors added purely for show, as well as hidden doors that looked like part of the wallpaper until you turned the key, which must have been entertaining for guests wandering around in the middle of the night). Unfortunately, the family fortune met a swift end due to both economic factors and the heir's unsuitability as a man of business; the house passed through several sets of hands over the decades, falling into greater and greater disrepair, until it was eventually purchased by the local government as a historic site; the restoration work so far has been piecemeal but high quality.

I found it especially interesting, after reading so many romances that take place during the late 18th and early 19th century; it was a good-sized house, but what really struck me was how small many of the rooms actually were. Even the large salon, where the hosts held dances, wasn't that much bigger than my living room. Admittedly, this wasn't exactly a manor house, just a country villa meant to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life; still, it was more than a little eye-opening.

Other highlights included taking the train to Stockholm to see the The Vasa, a 17th-century war galleon that was so poorly designed and overloaded with guns that it floundered and sank into freezing low-oxygen water on its maiden voyage...and, consequently, was extraordinarily well preserved for for three and a half centuries until the Swedes managed to fish it out and put it in a museum, when all its better-built contemporaries were destroyed. (Historical irony!) And we got to meet up with vatine and experience international karaoke; I was somewhat amused to discover that 80s music is just as popular a choice for karaoke in Sweden. My favorite non-American song that I heard was Björn Skifs' "Michelangelo"; it tickles me how incredibly 80s it manages to be, even though I didn't have the foggiest idea what it was about until Petra gave me a rough translation. (It's a dude singing about how gorgeous his girlfriend is and how Michelangelo should come paint her because "her smile will make the Mona Lisa ask to be taken down". So 80s.)

On a more personal note, I think I mentioned before that I had something of an irrational fear of international travel - where some people are afraid of spiders or heights, my fears all center around being lost in an unfamiliar place, being unable to understand those around me, and being unable to make myself understood. Obviously this was a pretty ideal trip with regards to those fears; almost everyone in Sweden speaks English, we had our friend to guide us and translate anything complicated, and between her presence and the existence of GPSs I wasn't in any danger of getting hopelessly lost. So I was able to make it through and enjoy myself without too much trouble. But...it was still stressful, not being able to read things. I could figure out some of it from pictures and symbols and the few words I do know, and after I'd been there for a few days (and had Petra translate a few things) it felt less like an incomprehensible jumble of syllables. But...man. Am I ever not used to being functionally illiterate. People tell me I seem so together; I don't think I'd realized how much of that was "I instinctively read everything around me, so I know stuff like where exits are and who's on the front page of the paper and what's being advertised". (And that's not even going into missing cultural context like "I know why that advertisement is problematic and who people think should be on the front page of the paper instead.") And...not having that together-ness is something of an emotional strain for me. I found myself retreating to the bathroom rather more often than I normally do, just so I could breathe deeply and touch up my lipstick and otherwise try to re-center myself and get my mental shields back in place.

Still, I only had one minor bout of homesickness midway through the trip, as compared to nearly every day the last time I traveled overseas (which was, admittedly, decades ago). So it's an improvement! I just wish I could be more comfortable going with the flow sometimes, I guess; I think I'd have a much better time if I could let go of that need to know as much as possible about any given situation. But since I apparently can't, at least I have Google and Duolingo and kind friends to fill in the gap.

I posted on Twitter last night about how much I love the acronym "FFS". It works on multiple levels - both in what it stands for, and as an onomatopoetic rendition of the sound you're likely making at the time. Fffssss.

This entry has, in some ways, also been a personification of that acronym. I must've started it three or four times over the past week, but was never able to get much farther than a sentence or two before giving up in frustration. Apparently I write far more easily from the perspective of "I've made a decision and this is it" than from "I have choices to make and I'm not sure which way to go". I'm sure you all are shocked.

I don't really look it, especially with the colorful hair, but I'm nearly thirty now. (Quote from a new friend in Boston I was giving advice to, which may become one of my favorite things anyone's said to me ever: "When I first saw you, I thought you were maybe twenty-two. But now that I've talked to you, I'm wondering if you're closer to fifty." Hee. Stealth wise-woman.) While being a twentysomething has been a fun bit of self-exploration, if there's a defining emotion for my experience with it, it's probably fear. Not paralyzing all-consuming fear, necessarily, but perfectly prudent types of fear - fear of getting lost, of doing the wrong thing, of people assuming incorrect things about me, of running out of money. And, perhaps most importantly, of failing at things I really want to do. And that last has induced some pretty paralyzing fears: Singing. Theatre. Writing. Learning guitar. Performing. Going to a proper performing school, as opposed to just a state college. Living in a city. To paraphrase a comment I made in an earlier post, the way I knew I really wanted to do all these things was how completely terrifying I found them.

What's changed? Honestly...I'm not certain I can answer that question. I can describe the effects: I went to Boston, visited an old friend and made several new ones, explored a little on my own, and had acres more confidence than I ever have before when in a new place, let alone when in a new place alone. (Admittedly, a certain amount of that was probably owing to Boston's public transit and Google Maps - hard to get lost when you just need to find the nearest tube station, and Maps has the most amazing integration with public transit systems. Tell it where you want to go, and it tells you which bus to take, when it leaves, what station to get off at, where to walk. No futzing with schedules or figuring out routes. Brilliant.) I've started playing guitar (only to find that I have a surprising knack for it - the girl I take lessons from said I was one of the fastest studies she's taught, at least when it comes to fingerpicking). And I've been looking into music schools. All of this is still scary, but I'm less afraid of failure than I was, which means the fear is thrilling rather than paralytic. Maybe I've just finally convinced myself that if I do fail, it won't be the end of the world - people will still care about me, I'll still be talented and capable and competent, and I'll be able to say that I've tried. Because honestly, it's kind of depressing being nearly thirty and not having much that I feel justifiably proud of even having tried to do.

On that note, I've decided I'm going to apply at Berklee College of Music, inconvenient geographical location and $150 application fee both be damned. Boston and I kind of hit it off, and I love the idea of a music school that focuses on jazz and modern styles rather than the traditional classical curriculum. Assuming they give me an audition (my credentials are not that great on paper), I'm pretty certain I can get in; the real question, though, is whether I'll be good enough for a full-tuition scholarship. ($50,000 a year in tuition. Fffssss. I don't care how prestigious your school is, that is not a price mere mortals can pay, and I'm sure as hell not taking it out in loans against a career as an artist.) They have seven Presidential (full tuition + housing) scholarships for incoming students each year, out of more than 4,000 applicants yearly. Better odds than winning the lottery, anyway, and it's at least theoretically merit-based. Judging by the video of their previous Presidential scholars, I think I've at least got a shot in voice. Maybe not so much on guitar, but I can keep taking lessons on the side.

Naturally, this all comes with its own set of complications. Brian is...not exactly thrilled at the idea of moving to Boston, as he's never been there and has few-to-no professional connections in the area. (For a few days it was particularly stressful, as he was interviewing for the position in Gresham, and I'm not sure how we might have worked moving to Oregon and then to Boston within a year or so. He didn't get the job, though, which is probably better in the long-term and definitely better for our pocketbook.) I'm hoping he'll come with me when I go for an audition and enjoy it as much as I did. If he doesn't, and on the off chance I do get that scholarship...well, that'll be an interesting day. But I'm willing to wait to cross that bridge until I come to it.

Anyway. This weekend's project - getting a video together to go with my application. Won't be much point in all this agonizing if they don't even give me an audition...

"Sometimes I think you're so focused on making sure that you don't care enough about anything to be disappointed by it that, when you actually do decide to care about something, you don't have any coping mechanisms to deal with it."

--Brian, on why even just the thought of possibly maybe attending music school is enough to keep me tossing and turning all night

Strangely vivid dreams last night. No real overarching narrative that I can remember (even a dream-logic one), but some very vivid images with lots of recurring themes: travel, loneliness, sudden bonds between near strangers, sexual tension, fear of betrayal, response to authority. It occurs to me that many of the images I recall would not be out of place in some kind of post-apocalyptic journey story a la The Road or Zombieland; there was that sense of continuous danger as well as that immediate bond between the few people I met that came from the sense of Hey, you survived this, too!.

For all of that, it wasn't a nightmare as such. There was only one moment that provoked a strong emotional response; I was driving a small car along a road that I had driven down just recently, and therefore wasn't paying a whole lot of attention (it wasn't like there was much traffic in this nearly-deserted world). Unfortunately, there had been a flood of some sort, and a spot in the road that had just been a small dip the last time had become a full-on wash, and a very deep one, at that. For whatever reason, I didn't notice it until it was too late to stop, and while I gunned the engine and almost made it over the dip, the rear wheels didn't catch and I was quickly sinking, back-end first, the car rapidly filling with water where I'd had the rear windows down slightly, the current tugging it under the ground.

Needless to say, I could feel my adrenal glands dumping epinephrine into my system. As came up in the post about the scorpion on my foot, adrenaline seems to kick my usual "face the problem and find a solution" approach into overdrive; I sort of turn into a Guy-Ritchie-style Holmes type, calmly outlining my plan of attack in my head and then putting it into action. In this case, even as the water came up over my face and I woke up (hoping, belatedly, that the choking sounds I realized I'd been making hadn't woken up Brian), I could actually hear myself thinking very calmly:

1.) Undo seatbelt.
2.) Take several deep breaths of what air you have remaining.
3.) When the water fills up the car, open the door. {Thank you, Mythbusters.}
4.) Swim out and against the current.
4a.) Flood waters are often polluted and filled with trash; keep your mouth and eyes shut.
5.) When the quality of light grows brighter, start kicking upwards.

I also remember thinking, also rather calmly, that there was a significant chance that this plan would fail and I would die. But, oddly, this didn't incite any additional fear; on some level I seemed to know that I could only do the best that I could and there was no point in wasting energy (and oxygen) panicking over it. Even when I woke up, choking with my system in overdrive, it didn't take me long to calm down. Though I did have to take some deep breaths to ground myself a bit and get over the attack of the shakes that always seems to follow high-adrenaline situations.

Particularly vivid dreams like this always make me wonder a little as to their provenance. I know most folks just figure dreams are randomly-activated neurons that your brain attempts to stitch together into a coherent story, but while last night's fragments didn't really hold together, they all felt very much of a piece - like they were from the same world, even after the waking-up-and-falling-back-asleep part. Maybe some dreams are a way of visiting alternate universes?

My birthday passed without much fanfare, but pleasantly enough nonetheless.  I've been looking after the gallery all weekend while the boss is out of town; Friday and Saturday are both long days, and Saturday especially was hectic as it was an art-walk day.  But Sunday was fairly quiet, which I appreciated; it gave me time to catch up on paperwork as well as more generally recover.

The lack of fanfare did not, however, mean that the day went unmarked.  Brian was kind enough to take some pictures of my new hair color (which finally matched a shirt I got several months ago at the clothing swap but hadn't yet worn) with his fancy camera.  My favorite looked much like something you'd see in a catalog, or possibly a photo-resume headshot.  (Click to embiggen - the high-res version really makes a difference, here.)


I especially love how, when I cropped it down for an icon, it looked like a completely different picture.

After I closed up the gallery, we went to Screaming Banshee Pizza, where they were unfortunately out of the Thai Me Up pizza (my favorite, and not just for the name), but made us a tasty-enough pie nonetheless.  And when we got home I discovered that Brian had made me an honest-to-blog red velvet cake, from the famous 1928 Waldorf-Astoria recipe, with buttercream frosting.  (I felt a little bad that he'd gone to all that effort, since buttercream is a cast-iron pain in the ass to make and I actually prefer the more common cream-cheese frosting, but I can't fault his results - the texture is absolutely perfect.)  We settled down with that and some fizzy red wine and watched The Artist, which was delightful - especially so to Brian, who I think got it mixed up with another movie when he was reading reviews, as he was convinced it was a Pretentious and Depressing Film about Man's Inhumanity to Man.  I'm glad I exercised birthday privileges and insisted we watch it.

I guess that means I'm 29 now.  I feel a little different about that than I did when I turned 28, though I'm not quite sure how to articulate it.  It's not like I was being all drama-filled and "Woe is me!" about 28, but there was a definite shift in perception - maybe just that 30 was suddenly within spitting distance, which kind of put the final nail in the youthful "I'm going to live forever" coffin.  Comparatively, I was downright Buddhist about 29.  "Time is a river and constantly moving.  Attachment to anything as inherently transient as youth will only create suffering.  Do not try to dam the river; instead, let the water carry you.  Om."

I don't know what prompted the change.  I've said before that I don't mind getting older, and mostly that's true (though I can't say as I particularly look forward to physical decrepitude, especially having just recently experienced the spasming soreness that is throwing out your back - more yoga for me!).  I like having had real world experiences to draw upon when forming opinions.  I like the broadening of perspective that comes with said experiences.  I like having had the time to fine-tune my preferences and desires, even if that means I lose a certain amount of the impulsive enthusiasm of youth.  And I like the sense that there are things that I'm getting really good at, because I've practiced them so much over time.  (It helps me to stick with the things I'm still learning, since I know that eventually I'll get there.) 

I think picking up the guitar's helped a lot, too.  At my 28th birthday, there weren't very many things I was actively working on; mostly I felt like I was treading water.  In November I did NNWM and came out with 50,000 words and a rough outline for an epic fantasy series that I think has real potential; even if I'm not certain if/when I'll pick it up again.  In early May I bought a guitar and started teaching myself; since then, I think only one day's gone by where I haven't picked a guitar up and practiced at least some.  Now I have an even nicer guitar (thanks, Mum!), and am nearing performance readiness on two songs, though I still have a good bit to learn.  Brian and I are making plans to move to Seattle in the next year or two.  Things are moving forward...perhaps in more of a labyrinth shape than a straight line, but moving nonetheless.

All that said, I think that I'm going to tentatively plan a long weekend in Vegas for my birthday next year.  (In all fairness, I'd really rather head to the clubs on Ibiza, especially as I'll likely soon be too old to enjoy the experience properly, but given the financial and geographical restrictions, Vegas is a somewhat more reasonable goal.)  30 is a milestone that deserves celebration, and I've never been to Sin City; and while I fully realize it will be an assault on all possible definitions of good taste, I do have a certain fondness for kitsch and popular entertainment, especially when it's both self-aware and so completely over-the-top as to become a form of meta-art (viz. Lady Gaga).  Would anyone be interested in possibly joining us?  When pricing out hotel rooms for DefCon Brian discovered that it's cheap as chips to stay at one of the casino hotels (hardly surprising - they know they'll make it back from you downstairs), and it'd be fun to meet up for a birthday dinner at one of the fancier restaurants and then perhaps go see one of the shows (I've wanted to see Penn & Teller for a decade now) and go out dancing.