It's Only A Paper Rose

As usual, spring feels like it comes about three weeks late to Chicago, but it's finally come—there are no days in the upcoming forecast where the weather's dipping below freezing, and in fact it's supposed to get up to 70 (albeit cloudy and windy) next week. More to the point, yesterday was the first day where the weather was nice enough, long enough, for me to take Gabriel up to Sauganash for my Monday commute. I was a little concerned about being out of shape; it's about five and a half miles each way, depending on the route you take. But I've been going to Sculpt semi-regularly (which always includes a good cardio section) and also biking to and from Lincoln Square (between 1.5 and 2 miles each way) regularly, so it wasn't anywhere near as much of a strain as I was concerned. It probably also helped that I was careful to actually eat enough calories; Brian pointed out that maybe part of the reason I was so tired all the time last summer was that I get so busy running from engagement to engagement that I forget to eat. (I'd still eat at mealtimes, usually, but I have trouble downing huge portions at once; I'm more of a grazer.) So I was careful to make sure I got enough food...and aided in that goal by Breanne (the studio manager) bringing in chocolate cupcakes that were bigger than my fist. The fact that I demolished about two-thirds of one with lunch, and still ended up under my calorie budget, gives you an idea of how much I was moving yesterday, haha.

My evening C2 was particularly interesting. I had a student walk in fairly early; I went to sign him in...and his name came up as "Chris Evans". He was not the Captain America Chris Evans, but of course I had to take a second look. When he caught me looking, I made some dumb joke about "You're a little smaller in person,"; he dutifully laughed and headed to the locker rooms, and my desk shift partner and I chatted a bit about various celebrity sightings we've heard about in the yoga community. Then he comes back, asks some minor question, and when I give him an answer, thanks me and flashes a truly megawatt smile—like, I'm pretty sure he practices in the mirror—before heading into the studio. My colleague and I sort of sat there, stunned for a moment, until I commented, "Well, *now* he's as good-looking as Captain America." Alas, he lives downtown and was only in the area for a work event, so I'm unlikely to see him again, but dang.

Needless to say, I was particularly pleased that my class came out extra well—not that it was perfect (no class ever is), but it was the second week doing this sequence, so I already had a good toolbox of cues, I could see people improving throughout the class (always a sign you're teaching well), and I'm particularly pleased with my theme this week and felt I wove it in solidly without hammering on it too hard. Honestly, I think it was one of the best C2 classes I've ever taught; it's amazing what wanting to impress an attractive audience member does for one's inspiration.

In weirder news, I have literally not read anything book-wise this week. Some of this has been the aforementioned cycles being taken up by house-hunting (it's a surprisingly emotionally-intensive activity, especially when you have a partner and you're having to negotiate your respective needs), but also, the time I normally spend reading has actually been taken up by writing. For the first time in a long while, I have an idea in my head that won't let go, despite being emotionally murky and requiring multiple rewrites—usually I lose interest after a week or so if I haven't found the clear arc. My brain is still convinced there's something good there, though, so I'm keeping at it...so this is basically an apology for not having a Wednesday book post tomorrow. I promise I'm not turning into one of those "I want to be a writer but I just don't have time to read" people, heh.

Now that the temperature is regularly below freezing, I decided it's time to put the bikes away for the season. (The streets are still clear, and in honesty I could probably add extra layers and keep it up, but planning a little extra time to catch a warm bus - even a warm bus that can be a bit unreliable time-wise - is frankly much more appealing than biking into a freezing headwind.) Our building has four bike hangers in the storage area and significantly more bikes, so I'm a little concerned about storage, but I check and - hurrah! - two of them are still free. I go back up to the porch, intending to unlock their respective cable locks and take them downstairs to hang up. Instead:

--I try to unlock Brian's bike, only to discover that his cable lock is frozen shut. Luckily, being Alaskans, we always have WD-40 on hand; I grab the bottle, squirt some into his lock, and work it in. Still no luck.

--I move over to try my bike, which has been used more recently, and that lock is frozen too - although a quick squirt of WD-40 solves the issue. I wrap the cable lock around the bike for storage and carry it downstairs, marveling at how much lighter it is without the 30 to 40 pounds of pannier bag I usually have attached when I'm going somewhere.

--I put the bike on the rack, only to realize that it's competing for space with the building's lawnmower. Some rearranging later, I manage to get the lawnmower and bike occupying minimal space without blocking the door. Partial Success!

--Encouraged by my triumph, I decide to tackle Brian's bike now rather than putting it off until later (when the other hanger may have been claimed). The WD-40 still hasn't de-iced the lock, so I default to the next trick in the Alaskan's arsenal and grab my salon-quality super-hot high-power blowdryer (thanks, Ian! Your Christmas present has been so useful!) and take it outside. The extra-long cord is juuuust long enough to reach from the plug to the other side of the deck, where the bike is.

--After a minute of blasting with extra hot air, the lock reluctantly opens. I squirt the end pieces for good measure, working them in and out a few times, and then wrap the cable around the bike and carry it downstairs, hanging it on the spare rack. Complete Success!

I'm just glad I didn't have to get the torch-style lighters out - I doubt the cable locks' plastic housing would have stood the heat...

It's the first real cold morning of winter (15 degrees in Farenheit, -9 in Celsius, At Least Three Layers And All The Winter Accessories in Ambrosia), and I decided to skip yoga class before work because I'm having a hard time convincing myself to go out before it's absolutely necessary. So now that I have two whole hours free, I thought I might wave to my LJ friends and reassure them I made it into the new year just fine.

Biggest laugh of the morning: Women Having A Terrible Time At Parties In Western Art History. "maybe if i keep covering more of my face with my hands/he’ll forget i’m here/and go away"...oh man. Vivid memories of working circulation in my college library, and certain patrons who thought they'd try to chat up the cute girl behind the desk.

It's been a quiet first week of the year. Our holiday plans fell through somewhat - we'd intended to go to a dance/concert with some friends, but they had an emergency and had to cancel. Since we already had tickets, and I had an outfit all picked out, we decided to go anyway; people-watching was fun, but ultimately we just weren't feeling it and decided to hop a train home before the rush. And really, that was okay; we got back and sipped some leftover sparking wine and went to bed. I guess this is officially The Year We Are Old.

Since then we've mostly been hanging out at home, partly due to holiday budgetary hangover and partly due to Brian having come down with a cold (Brian, dismayed: "I was working nights all month and barely left the house! Where did I get a cold?") I managed to fight it off successfully with a combination of Emergen-C and taking it easy for a few days, but given that next week he's going to be commuting to/from a client site in the suburbs, I think our plans to take down Christmas decorations are getting delayed a week.

Other than that, though, things are good. I have a longer and more thoughtful post percolating on finances, long-term goals, social/generational trends, and luck, but the upshot is, we're finally at a point financially where we're able to seriously save for a home of our own. I've honestly doubted for a long time we'd ever reach that point, since the places we wanted to live (i.e. urban environments with good transit and lots of restaurants/attractions) tend to be quite pricey, and historically we're more prone to want to enjoy our money than sock it away; but thanks to hard work, good social connections, and some excellent luck, it's looking like we may be able to start seriously house-hunting (or, more likely, condo-hunting) in a couple of years. We'll see how it works out - make plans and the gods laugh, after all. Still, it's a nice place to be.

I don't have any New Year's resolutions as such; most of my goals are continuous (keep up with yoga/healthier food choices to keep my mood issues in check, keep an eye out for new career opportunities, keep learning new things to avoid getting stuck in a rut, et cetera). But a theme that's been coming up in my life lately has been practicing gratitude without anxiety or entitlement. I have a lot of friends who did not have a great 2015, often due to factors entirely beyond their control; I know that someday that might be me (in cases involving death of a loved one, someday it will be me, unless I die first). And I also know a lot of people - including me, sometimes - who have trouble appreciating when things go well because all they can focus on is how temporary it is, and how things are bound to go wrong eventually. So I've been working on holding that sense of gratitude, and the vulnerability it entails, and being gentle with the part of me that wants to get caught up in worrying about the future. Similarly, there's the part of me that's terrified of becoming an entitled white person, who subconsciously believes they're owed their privilege and success simply because they've always had it; it's partly why I get so uncomfortable in the suburbs, where there's a high percentage of people with that mindset. So I'm trying to be gentle with that part of me as well, acknowledging its existence and reassuring it through various means (staying socially aware, donating when I can and without feeling guilty for not giving more, practicing compassion towards others even when they're doing things I disagree with or find inconvenient). It's a tough balance to strike, and man, is it difficult to practice self-love towards the parts of your personality you don't like. But it feels like important work, so I'm going to keep at it.

I'm in Seattle, and appear to have lucked out with regards to the weather - it's been sunny and warm (for Seattle) and absolutely lovely with the fall colors just coming out. Monday I take the train up to Mt. Vernon to see Donna for the first time in far too long and meet my goddaughter, but for now I'm enjoying spending some time in one of my favorite cities. It still entertains me how the smells here translate to "home" for me in a way Chicago doesn't yet; much as I love my new city, that crisp-cool cedar-and-spruce smell just makes me feel at ease in a way few environments do.

thewronghands, whose social network I've long admired from afar, is graciously letting me stay in her swanky digs and meet a few of her local friends; especially graciously as she's kind of been swallowed by work lately. (Luckily I'm a little familiar with the "work is eating your world" crunch-time environment, heh.) But I've still gotten to meet canyonwren, whom I've long suspected is pretty awesome, after years of seeing her comment on LJ. Hi! *waves*

Adora Belle has adjusted far faster than we had dared hope, and is already sleeping in her kitty bed (as opposed to jammed under the far corner of the guest bed) and wanting to be let out to explore the rest of the house. Brian has been carefully introducing her to the other cats; as expected, she gets on fine with Dexter, and things look more or less okay with Tripp, but Leo's really not sure about all of this, and there's been some hissing and growling on his part. So, time to find some baby gates at a thrift shop and see about convincing him that she won't eat him. Sigh. I foresee our treat reserves becoming rather lower over the next couple weeks.

Work has continued to go well, although the clinic has had an extraordinarily slow October - possibly due to the Cubs hoopla and everyone saving their pennies for beer at Wrigley Field. Still, I've had a few rebookings - including one particularly enthusiastic client who told me she'd been telling all her friends to book with me - and I'm starting to get hits from the business cards I've been passing out. And as much fun as I've been having in Washington, I'm actually kind of missing work. Which was never a phrase I thought I would utter. Clearly I've been replaced by a pod person.

Back in Anchorage, and pleased to report things are going rather better this time around. I brought CJ up with me, so my mother's guest room is still off-limits (until he goes home Tuesday), but I'm staying at my grandmother's, and that combined with the fact that we actually get some darkness this time of year has meant I've slept just fine. Although the three-hour jet lag is a bit of a trick...I was yawning like crazy at 9:30 last night, and couldn't figure out why until I did the math. Likewise, at 6:30 this morning I snapped awake. Fun times. But it did mean I had plenty of time to get myself presentable before my mother came by for me at 8. I spent enough time futzing with clothing choices and jewelry that, when my mother came to the door, my grandmother answered with "Her Highness will be down shortly." ...So maybe I'm a little obsessive about colors. So sue me.

The flight was surprisingly nice. I was flying coach this time, but we were on one of Alaska Airlines' newest planes - the seats were surprisingly comfortable, there was enough actual legroom even for CJ, and the seats had power sockets in them! (It's like they designed them for actual present-day people!) One of the flight attendants recognized me from the last couple times I flew this route ("Wasn't your hair purple a couple months ago? And red before that?"), and chatted with me a bit and gave me my Alaskan Amber for free. Aww. Yay for having memorable hair. My luggage was also notably lighter than it was last time. I was somewhat puzzled by this, until I realized that I've read so much on my Kindle lately, that I'd only packed (gasp) two paper books. We'll see if I manage to keep to that limit on the trip back. It might depend on whether or not I visit Title Wave...

My mother, having read my blog as per usual, was wonderfully thoughtful and ordered me a set of sealing-wax in all sorts of bright pearlescent colors, and a beautiful seal of a rose ("I made sure it has thorns, too, just for you!"). And here I am without any stationery...I'm thinking I may make a trip to the mall to see if I can remedy that. (Also maybe for Hot Dog On A Stick.) Likewise, my (Bahá'í, and thus teetotaling) grandmother pressed upon me a bottle of genuine Russian potato vodka, left with her some months ago by a Russian-native guest of hers. "Just don't drink it in front of me." I'll have to find her something nice; I felt awful when I realized I'd brought a present for CJ and for my mum but hadn't gotten her anything.

This morning has been lovely and peaceful. It's apparently been a super-rainy fall season, and when my mother came by there were clouds and a nice steady drizzle. Oddly, this didn't feel depressing in the least; I have a lot of fond memories of rainy fall mornings in this town. (Although there was a bit of an entertaining role reversal, since rather than being dropped off at school, I was dropping my mother off at work.) I've been trying to figure out why, last trip aside, I find Anchorage to be so calming. Some of it is the familiarity, but I think a lot of it is the relative lack of density. For all I love cities (and Chicago in particular), I've spent most of my life living in areas where you could drive a little ways off the beaten path and be miles away from anybody else. It's taken some getting used to the idea that whenever I step outside my door, I'm on public display, as it were - there's a lot of parkland and public spaces in Chicago, but there's almost always people in them, no matter the time of day or night. On the one hand, I rather enjoy it, and it's definitely motivated me to dress better and think more about issues like courtesy and graciousness, and how the social lubrication they provide is especially necessary when living in a high-density situation. But on the other, it's a relief of sorts to be back in a place where I don't have to be constantly thinking about whether I'm in anyone's way, or intruding on anyone's space, or acting in a way that makes anyone else uncomfortable. Social pressure is an important thing, but it's pressure all the same.

Anyway, off I go to give CJ the grand tour. And possibly find stationery. And tonight, I Hate Hamlet! I think it'll be a wonderful day.

Good morning, Chicago! Yesterday was completely lovely; the weather warm but not hot. Brian had to work, so I went and had brunch with a couple of friends, one of whom accompanied me for a nice wander around the neighborhood afterward. We got mani-pedis (and, for the first time ever, I managed to keep from smudging mine), and I took her to my recently-discovered favorite salon for an appointment. Yay for girly days! And now my finger- and toe-nails are precisely the same shade of orange-red as my hair.

As of today, I'm in a strange sort of limbo. I was originally supposed to be going to Detroit this week to help with more survey administration, but due to some bureaucratic argy-bargy (apparently two weeks is not enough time for Detroit Public Schools to run a background check) they had to send someone else instead. So now my schedule for the next several days is unusually bare.

This morning, at least, that turned out to be a plus. We woke up to discover a very bedraggled Leo looking shamefacedly up at us. At first we thought he'd taken a dip in his water fountain, but when I wandered out into the kitchen I found the counters and floor turned into a beautiful abstract oil painting. (Brian had been deep-frying chicken pieces last night and left the oil out in a bowl overnight to cool. Which, in all fairness, he normally does without incident.) Mop, drugstore for baby shampoo, bathtime, in that order. Now someone just needs to clean the kitchen up. Guess who's been elected. (Brian held Leo in the bathtub - fully clothed - while I poured water on them, and still got several scratches for his trouble, so really, it's only fair.) Meanwhile, Leo is furiously grooming all the water out of his fur. I predict a massive hairball or two later.

As it happens, I'm still going to the Detroit area on Thursday. Originally I'd been planning to go and visit CJ and Amanda and John the weekend after survey administration, but since that didn't work out, CJ offered to buy me a train ticket. I'm actually moderately excited about the prospect; I haven't yet been on Amtrak, and I'm quite fond of trains. And anything that means less time dealing with TSA is perfectly fine with me.

Mood-wise, there's been a lot of up-and-down recently. I wonder if the lack of yoga is part of it; I applied for CorePower's yoga-for-trade program and got back a generic "we'll let you know if there's an opening at a location near you" response. A month ago. I'm honestly wondering if I should just find a darn part-time job so I can pay for it; I still think their studios are way overpriced, but the improvements I saw in strength and mobility when I was going regularly were...marked. Not to mention how it always improved my outlook and emotional state. Sigh.

Still, I've had a good week now where I haven't been turning into Grumpy Cat every few minutes, and I'll take what I can get. I'm even playing the guitar again! I'd been doing it sporadically for several months, and then for a month or two I wasn't playing hardly at all. But I'm actually excited about it again, which hasn't been the case for a while now. Been thinking about making a video or a recording. Say it with me, folks: we'll see if anything comes of it.

The weather is beautiful today too, if warmer - approaching thunderstorms seem to love pushing the heat ahead of them. I suspect that after lunch I may put on shorts and sunscreen and wander down to the lakeshore with an ice cream bar.

More ridiculously cold weather has arrived. It's -1 right now, which is actually slightly higher than the "high" of -2. Not bad if you bundle up, but Brian had to run to work for a few supplies and reported back that the wind is nasty-cold. And tomorrow it's supposed to pick up, with wind chills down to forty below. I remain grateful that Brian and I both can work from home - in fact, Brian's employer actively encourages people to stay home and work remotely in weather like this.

Needless to say, the ratio of "Good for you!"s to pitying looks I've gotten when telling people I just moved here from Arizona has been trending toward the latter of late. Most of them don't believe me when I tell them I'm actually enjoying it (with the important help of stylish-and-warm winter gear and a well-insulated home), so I've been insisting that it's just like when I was growing up in Anchorage. Although my mother reports it's been so warm in Anchorage the past couple weeks (forty-odd degrees and sunny) that the pussy willows are all budding out three months early. Mid-February I'll actually be headed up in that direction; she bought me tickets to fly up there (first class! my mother is awesome) so I could help her out while she undergoes minor surgery. If this weird reversal keeps up I'm going to start telling people I'm vacationing in Alaska to escape the winter weather.

In other news, like roughly 90% of the female population of this country in January, I've decided I could stand to lose a few pounds. I don't think I'm fat or anything, but I've been gradually putting on weight over the past couple of years, and (especially what with working from home, with all the possibilities for deliciousness therefore constantly available) I'm not quite willing to trust my gut feelings on how much and when to eat. I've had very good luck with HabitRPG for building daily habits, and Mint.com for budgeting, so I saw no reason the same idea wouldn't work for tracking my food intake. To that end, I've been playing with Lose It!, a calorie/nutrition tracking website/app combination. I've been very impressed with it so far: you can move seamlessly between the app and the website, the interface is clean and easy to use, there's an extensive database of foodstuffs available, including lots of popular restaurant items, and - what really sold me on it - the app has a barcode scanner so you can instantly download the nutrition information of whatever you're cooking/eating and be certain it's correct. I know lots of people find this kind of thing a pain in the ass, but I have just enough of a meticulous control-freaky streak that I actually really enjoy it (especially with the streamlining in place so there's relatively little time spent entering or adding or multiplying). Admittedly, I've only used it for a few days, but it's been really nifty to be able to quickly punch in different food/exercise combinations and see how they affect my calorie budget for the day. It's also encouraged me to look for healthier options in day-to-day eating, since I know that those are the ones that'll make me feel fullest and happiest per calorie. It's given me that extra bit of encouragement to pay closer attention to how much I eat - that last pierogi might be tasty, but if I'm not hungry for it, I get 80 more calories to spend on dinner. (And then Brian's happy because he gets to eat my last pierogi.) And best of all, I've been enjoying food more - I know it's cliche dieting advice at this point, but it's really true that food tastes better when you wait until you're good and hungry for it.

The app also a whole community/social aspect, which I haven't played with much, but a little bit of clicking around the forums has shown a surprising lack of fat-shaming or body snark or other nastiness, and quite a bit of sensible advice about nutrition and exercise. Some people even use the tool to help them gain weight, and everyone seems to talk pretty openly and frankly about their experiences. So that's encouraging. The only thing that bugs me slightly is the focus on weight - if you're eating well and going to the gym regularly, for instance, your weight might not change but your body shape would (because you're building muscle as you burn fat). I wish there were a setting to go by waist size, or something similar. Still, the benefits inherent in the way it's adjusted my mental thinking about food are strong enough that I think I'll probably keep using it even after I get to the point where I change it to a maintenance-level calorie-intake rather than a net-loss calorie-intake. And that's probably the best compliment I can pay any such tool.

I also want to give a public shout-out to my friend Leigh, who gave me another invaluable tool in thinking about food or anything else that requires willpower. It was a few months ago, when I'd ordered some soup and potstickers for lunch for Lao Sze Chuan (a local incredibly-gourmet Chinese restaurant chain that has the most amazing food). Their potstickers are delicious and also enormous, and I'd eaten three of the five, and I could tell I was full, but I really really wanted to eat the other two. Leigh was gracious enough to listen to me angst about this over IM, and then rather than get all pedantic on the benefits of abstinence like I probably would have, she just said "You know, two potstickers and a glass of wine sounds like a fabulous midafternoon snack." And I realized she was right - and furthermore, that sort of thinking works wonders for all sorts of situations. You just stop framing it as "I can't have this right now", fix a concrete point in your mind where you can, and think about how much you're going to enjoy it then. Using scarcity and willpower to increase anticipation and maximize enjoyment. When you have a hedonic streak like I do, that's total and complete genius. I am so grateful for my awesome friends. <3

(Also? I don't want to jinx it by going on about it, but I think I'm feeling inspired again. So I'm going to go rinse the dye out of my hair and see if I can't sneak in some writing above and beyond my 500-word minimum today. Wish me luck.)

I'd forgotten how dazzling the snow-covered world is when the sun comes out. When I flicked the blinds open this morning I'm pretty certain I yelped as the light stilettoed its way into my dark-adapted retinas.

Yesterday was our first real snowstorm. Nothing life-stopping, just a few inches; it snowed steadily if not heavily for most of the day and into the night. (Brian called it "movie snow" - thick enough to be noticeable, but not so heavy as to obscure the shot, and not windy enough to muss the actors' careful coifs.) Much to my pleasant surprise, driving in it was not nearly so miserable as I'd anticipated. Most folk around here seem to understand the concept of "drive slowly and carefully when it's snowing and the roads are slick". The only part that made me raise my eyebrow was when, while turning left at a six-way intersection, the woman behind us started leaning on her horn when we didn't turn against the light. In a slick, unsalted intersection. While our path was still blocked by a string of gridlocked cars. Brian (who was driving and could see her in the rear view mirror) said she was yelling and screaming and about to have a coronary when we ended up waiting for another 90-second light cycle. I shrugged and thought maybe she was late for a job interview or her mother's deathbed or something, but we saw her not a minute later pulling into the Costco parking lot. (Maybe her mother was dying at Costco?) I guess that ninety seconds of her life must've been incredibly important to her. Maybe she's an transdimensional traveller and could see that we were literally ruining every single one of her futures by causing her to arrive at 12:45:28 instead of 12:44:02? Who knows. But I'm sure glad I don't live inside her head.

Nevertheless, we got a couple of errands done, including some new clothes for Brian, new wiper blades for the car (hurrah, Costco!), and an adjustment on Brian's 12-string (hurrah, Chicago Music Exchange!). And once we got home, I finally managed to clear the last of the boxes out of the living room...just in time to fill it with the Christmas tree and the boxes of decorations! Heh. Still, there's something rather appropriate-feeling about putting up the tree on the day of the first real snowfall. Now to find time to decorate...

Last week was busy, but fun. I dyed my hair red (see new icon) and bought a pretty silk chiffon skirt and wore both to Brian's new company's Christmas party, which is a pretty good-size event. I got to meet and befriend an out-of-town friend's girlfriend, who is super-awesome - intelligent and kind-hearted and also gorgeous; I can totally see why my friend is so into her, and it's awesome to see her so happy. And I got to see a couple of art museums around town, including the local Mexican Museum of Folk Art and the Art Institute's display of Food and Art, which included the originals of both Norman Rockwell's Freedom From Want and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. (Seeing the latter in person was especially entertaining, as I'd seen roughly eighty billion Photoshopped versions but never spent much time looking at the original.)

Social meetings continue apace. I've managed to tentatively befriend one girl near my age who moved here from South Carolina; she's planning to bring her boyfriend over for dinner come January when she's back from touring with her current theater group and visiting family over Christmas. And I met another at the Evening with Paul and Storm and Patrick Rothfuss; we're meeting up at the Christkindlmarket tonight at 6. Hurrah for making friends somewhat faster than I did in Arizona. Or at least, signs pointing in that direction.

Also? For all my Alaskan upbringing, after four years of AZ, there's something a little shocking about pulling up the weather forecast and seeing the low for this evening marked as a single digit. Almost as weird as it was the first year in Arizona seeing triple-digit highs. Guess I must like extremes.

It's not unusual for it to snow in Bisbee; we're high enough in elevation that, come winter, it regularly gets below freezing at night. Sooner or later during the year, we'll get some precipitation on a cold night, and wake up to an inch or two of snow on the ground. Everyone gets pictures and makes snowmen before it melts later that day. No big deal.

It's somewhat less common to wake up to an entire foot of snow on the ground.

But this New Year's Eve, we were graced with a lovely blanket of snow. And while some of it melted during the day, there was enough of it to stick around for a few days. Even now, a week and a half later, there's patches of it on the hillsides. It's actually pretty entertaining - you can really see which parts of Bisbee get lots of sun during the day, and which stay in shade.

Unfortunately, being desert dwellers, our immune systems are not used to this kind of weather. Lo and behold, everyone in Bisbee has a case of the sniffles. It's one of those extra-nasty lingering bugs, too, that sticks around long after it should be gone. I've had it for a week now, and while I seem to be over the worst of it, the recovery is see-sawing around a lot more than I'd like. (Yesterday, despite a scratchy throat, I went out and ran errands and was generally productive. Today just walking to work was enough to give me that light-headed "you're overexerting yourself" feeling. But I still put in a good full day's worth of work. Eat that, cold virus.)

Nonetheless, New Year's was wonderful - cyrano came to visit, and brought the lovely lucia with him. We had a lovely dinner, and although our walking-about-town plans afterward were curtailed somewhat by the temperature and snow, we instead snuggled on the couch and watched Moulin Rouge. (I can report with near-100% certainty that, in addition to being beautiful, intelligent, and lovely to talk to, lucia is also deliciously soft and gives the sweetest snuggles.) I was sad to wave goodbye to them the next day, but life does get in the way of vacation. Alas.

My most recently completed project is replenishing my underwear drawer, which has been in a rather sad state for some time now. In the process, I discovered that I'm now a 34D - I guess that's the upside of having gained a fair amount of weight? I'm a little amused, though; if you told my barely-A-cup 18-year-old self that someday I'd be a D cup, I would've laughed myself sick. It certainly explained why none of my old bras seemed to fit, even aside from them being kind of raggedy and worn. Several trips to Victoria's Secret, a botched online order, a couple of returns, and a rather embarrassing amount of money later, I now have seven bras (five padded, two unpadded, in all sorts of pretty colors) and assorted matching undies, all brand-new, all extremely well-fitting, and several quite fancy. (I made the mistake of letting the salesgirl talk me into trying on one of their $50 bras as well as a $30 one...I figured it'd be nicer, but not $20 nicer. I was wrong.) I feel even more pleased than I expected about this. Wearing a poorly-fitting bra is hardly a life-ruining experience, but it is a constant low-level irritation. You get acclimated to it and eventually don't notice it anymore, but boy, you sure notice when it's gone.

Still waiting on a response from Berklee College of Music, although that's hardly surprising - they don't mail them out until the latter half of this month. I did get an email from their financial aid department, asking me to fill out the FAFSA so that, if I was accepted, they could determine what sort of awards I was eligible for. According to the government, I'm likely eligible for a $9,500 subsidized loan, which may be something to consider if they offer me a partial scholarship. It's inexpensive money (3.7% interest, which the government pays while I'm in school and for six months afterward), but on the other hand, that's between thirty and forty thousand dollars I would owe by the time I got my degree. That's a difficult financial hit to take. *And* it's less than a third of tuition alone. Sigh. I'd have to sell a lot of CDs to make that up.

In the meantime, though, I have Kalia back! I sent her back to Takamine for warranty service because the action on her lower frets was rather high, and the local guitar guy thought the neck was slightly skewed. They decided the neck was fine and she just needed a set-up and re-stringing, then sent her back. (Well, at least I got a new set of strings for my $44 in postage. Grr.) She's still a gorgeous guitar, though, and it's wonderful to have her back (...three months later), so I'm not holding any grudges. Mostly.

Speaking of which, I believe it's time I continued our getting reacquainted. If you'll pardon me...

The past few days have been windy and stormy and downright cold. Lows tonight are forecast in the 26-35 F range.

I feel like the Alaskan and Arizonan parts of me are at war over this. The Arizonan is like "hey, wtf? Where's my sun and nice walking weather?" and the Alaskan says "About time! I FEEL ALIVE!"

Now if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go do yoga in a turtleneck...