It has been such a long long time since I've blogged. I've thought about blogging at least once or twice a week, usually as I'm climbing the stairs to my apartment after a long drive back from Redmond. But once I open the door to my home and find BSG dvds to watch, fun new recipes to try, and a cute boy to cuddle on the couch, all my ambitions disperse. So it goes.
May was also a pretty insane month, as we:
Adopted a new vacuum
Visited family & friends in LA
Went to New York for the Stationery Show
Hosted Kim & Emily for the weekend
Recorded a hit single with the Seattle Six.
A lot has been going on.
I was recently reading through my old blog from my college years, and it's insane how much I would put out there in public all my thoughts and feelings about *everything.* I was a steady blogger from 2001 to 2005, averaging 15 posts a month at least. And in the early years I didn't have a digital camera, so it was all words. Sometimes I would post results of internet quizzes like "which Harry Potter character are you?" (Remus Lupin), but mostly it was just a daily recital of my innermost thoughts.
And it seems like I had more personality back then. I guess by that I just mean that I put more tang and pizazz into things. I was oh, tremendously emo, and everything moved me, everything had such great significance. I think I thought that if I didn't blog it, reflect on it, and really glean from each experience its deeper meaning on my walk through life, I would fail to understand or grow. I would be at a standstill.
I don't still have that mentality, but some of that must dwell in the far corners of my brain, otherwise I wouldn't still be here, blog blog blogging. I feel more content now to just move through my life and hold onto whatever my body and mind choose to hold onto. But the world of blogs and the blogging community has changed so much from what it was like in 2008. What is the ultimate function of a blog now to me?
This blog, Bendytime, was initially conceived as a way for both Andy and myself to keep in touch with family and friends in both Minnesota and California. But a blog cannot possibly perform that function. The only way to do that is to put phone to ear, pen to paper, butt to airplane seat. So where does that leave us? With a document of our lives that we are too busy to update.
I don't really know what I am getting at here.
It is a beautiful Sunday night here in Seattle. Today we changed my license plates from California to Washington, and part of me was sad, but part of me was resigned to it. If I plan to live as many different places and travel as much as I hope to, little things like changing license plates will have to become commonplace. Another step: hopefully getting our passports soon.
Andy is cutting his hair in the bathroom sink and I am preparing a big pile of tshirts and totebags that I plan to silkscreen for friends. I stayed up till 3m drawing up a Space Needle birdhouse, and if all goes well, my nearest and dearest will be getting homemade presents from me for my birthday.
Today in Los Angeles, my brother graduated from college and I was not there. But I think he knows I'm proud of him. And graduating from college is not really biggest milestone or accomplishment he will ever achieve. The ones that will make an impact will be–or already have been–quiet and solitary. Most likely he wouldn't even notice until much later, and then look back and go "oh yes. that was a big moment. something changed."
And it was Father's Day too. I bought my dad a card at Bartell's, and I noticed how many of the cards said things like "Even though you don't say a lot, you've done so much for me" or "Although you're a man of few words..." or "The way you tell me you love me is in actions not in words." Is that really a reality for fathers? Not talking? Enough that the writers at Hallmark have found a dozen different ways to say basically the same thing? Or is it that the kind of kids who buy their dads beige and brown Hallmark cards with long-copy and photos of fish and golf carts on them are the kinds of kids who don't know their fathers very well. I have a Hallmark campaign in my portfolio where the tagline is "Feelings are complex. Cards are simple." The Father's Day cards I read made me want to revise it to "Feelings are scary. Cards are safe."
But more than anything, it makes me sad for families and children everywhere. At least in my family, the sentiment is true. Since moving to Seattle, I've found it impossible to talk to my Dad, while my relationship with my Mom has gotten much better. I called for Father's Day and we spoke for barely 3 minutes. I don't know if it's because he's mad that I moved, or worried about me, or just that he's so emotional about it he can't even talk. But the point moreso is that I don't know. Because he won't tell me. And I don't even know why he won't tell me. If he would even just tell me why he won't tell me, I wouldn't ask any more questions.
My life would be much better if my Dad had a blog. Or a Facebook.
And otherwise, life parades onward. Speaking of parades, the summer solstice parade in Freemont this weekend promises naked people galore, I am looking forward to posting photos on my Flickr. Not to be missed!
Jun 15, 2008
Back to Blogging
Feb 6, 2008
somehwere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
Never-before seen shots of Bendy's home in Seattle!
Feb 3, 2008
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
I have a new job! Or rather a new freelance assignment. It will last through the first week of March and pays me enough to keep me in all the $1 Starbucks coffee my little heart desires. Best yet, it is at a design firm whose work I have long admired and I am learning a great deal from some really talented creative people. I was unemployed in Seattle for a total of 5 days, for which I feel very fortunate. Of course when the assignment ends I might have weeks and weeks of unemployment, but for right now it is helping me adjust and meet new people.
Parking downtown costs about $16/day, so I have been riding the bus to work. It's a short 15 minute ride and costs about $1.50 each way. I think the experience of taking the bus makes me feel like a real grown up in a real city, but I suspect the novelty will wear off soon. It is comfortable to come home and make a little dinner for me and my roommate, chat with a few friends, and close out the evening with the Colbert Report. I feel all domesticated. But it's only been a week.
Weekends have been spent adventuring in such places as the landmark Seattle Central Library and the giant retail city of Tukwila. Poor Tukwila seems to exist purely as a location on the outskirts of metropolitan Seattle where cityfolks can drive a short distance to the giant Ikea, Ross, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Guitar Center and Westfield Shoppingtown, a shoppingtown within a shoppingtown. It's as though the city of Seattle has taken the garish landscaping that embodies the suburban strip mall and swept it under the carpet that is Tukwila. That way the neighborhoods of Belltown, Magnolia, Fremont, Queen Anne and Pioneer Square can stay as charming as their names might imply.
The best thing so far really has been our location within Lower Queen Anne and down the street from the Seattle Center. This is my first experience of living in the heart of a metropolitan area. I enjoy hearing the shouts of drunk people down the street. It's sort of similar to the feeling of being all cozy inside when it's raining outside, which I've also been enjoying a lot. We are like a 5 minute walk from two grocery stores, a really good thai food place, the local indie movie theater, a used book store, a pottery studio, a record store, the Key Area, Seattle International Film Festival Theater, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Experience Music Project, some crazy looking big top circus dinner theater place called Teatro ZinZanni and a bunch of bars and restaurants. It reminds me of visiting friends at Berkeley in that everything is walking distance and I am excited to go out and try it all.
The only drawback is that with so much to do, it's been difficult to find time to blog...
Jan 27, 2008
Dairy Air on Your Derriere
As an addendum to the post about living the the Herpes Triangle, we finished our cheesecake cookies following an easy little recipe in a book that Andy's best friend Katie had given him as a housewarming present. The recipe calls for plain cream cheese, and Andy had the inspiration to sub in strawberry cream cheese and make them strawberry cheesecake cookies. As we were baking, we noticed a little note on the tub that read: "For cooking use regular cream cheese"
This could easily be interpreted as "For cooking use. Regular cream cheese." The break really makes the difference, or maybe a comma between cooking and use would help. They turned out yummy and buttery and delicious, but a little flat and chewy. We have to wonder if the texture would have been better with "regular cream cheese."
Jan 26, 2008
Thank Goodness for Valtrex
We live in the Herpes Triangle, according to a recent article in the Seattle Weekly. Which means that things are prone to mysteriously disappear and then later reappear in the form of a watery blister on your mucous membranes.
The best thing about that article is how it barely seems to qualify as news. Maybe it's my out-of-townerness, but to me it seems like a waste of newsprint (and a waste of newsprint is a tough thing to achieve because it's pretty much the worst paper ever) to detail the adventures of the local bar-hoppers, even to go all undercover and pretend to be single in order to gather research. To push the fact you're not actually single, just playing one in your column, as though being single was an experience as foreign to you as being say, a gay porcupine or an erudite journalist. And to present the results of your exposé in such a boring manner. The North High North Wind staff, on its worst most self-indulgent day wrote fake letters to the editor that were more hard-hitting.
Anyway. We do see a fair amount of drunken mumblers and slutty high-heeled tumblers in our neighborhood. A few months ago we heard a bunch of frat boys crossing the street and looked out the window just in time to see one fellow take out his penis and wave it around. Assumedly this is how the herpes is spread in Lower Queen Anne, so a good raincoat provides protection from more than just the rain.
Part of me wants to get down there and join in the party, because I've never lived in such close proximity to an actual bona fide party. Courtney often touted the benefits of living walking distance to bars and clubs, so that the toilet you collapse into will likely be your own and you'll never have to call that guy with the tiny motorcycle to save you from a DUI. But we've got our old-married-couple bedroom slippers on and instead we're opting to stay in and make cookies on a Friday night. Strawberry cheesecake cookies.
And nothing on our mucous membranes but sweet sweet mucous.
Jan 3, 2008
Photo blogging because I'm lazy
I think in the beginning here it's gonna be a lot of photos of stuff and crap. I've spent basically the whole day designing the header for our blog, I'm feeling tired and my wacom pen feels like lead. So here are whatever photos I have lying around on my desktop:
An old picture from 4th of July in Venice. Before we discovered the magic of the "heeeey" photo.
The view of Lower Queen Anne from our living room window.
A tail of two cities: Long distance animal cracker love.
Some of my most favorite LA people on a random night out
A portrait of Ben and Beth; Hey, I didn't know we were supposed to be trying to look cool.
The second place winner for the annual family Christmas card. My brothers are so adorable!
