The boxes that stressed me out so badly are gone. £300 or so and they're on a truck headed to a shipping container headed to a ship, headed to Los Angeles and then in some way from thence to Menlo Park. I might see them a month after I return, or I might be lucky to see them before Christmas.
The apartment feels like a husk. Worse than a hotel room which retains its impersonalness throughout a stay; this was once home and is no more. In some ways it's worse than moving, because I haven't seen the "next home" in so long that I've had none of the visceral, animal comfort of knowing somewhere is next. Now all I have are two giant suitcases, a really large laptop bag, and a reasonable-sized backpack. All STUFFED with things.
And a luggage scale, I should mention. It seemed as I was packing and weighing and repacking and weighing and putting things into the boxes instead, that I couldn't get even just the things I came here with into the bag and be underweight. Humidity? I guess? I sure won't miss the cold drizzling rain.
Then again, I'm hoping the rain starts up as soon as I get home, to be honest. I've been watching the onslaught of burning in California from afar, watching the Valley Fire creep closer and closer to my old summer camp, watching it spread near friends in Fresno, watching it creep up the ridgeline near my Grandma's house in Twain Harte, and hoping that it stops soon. Seriously, the burnt part of California must be larger than the unburnt part at this point, and with an El Niño coming (oh god I hope it is) we're in for some big, ugly mudslides.
I hope it gets cold, and I hope it rains (or better yet SNOWS) like crazy. But... I could use a few days of summer before it starts up, if that's okay? :\
Monday, September 21, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
T-minus Fifteen Days
Today, I folded up my sewing table, and then lugged my lovely borrowed Bernina back to its original owner. Suddenly my apartment feels like someone else's place and no longer my home.
My life in the last few weeks has consisted of inventories and decisions about what things I want to keep and which I will leave here. I'm living more or less out of a suitcase. On Monday, they come to take anything not in the suitcases away, and put them on a boat. I may not see them again until just before Christmas. (6-12 weeks? Really?)
I have a general level of anxiety that is simply astronomical. This is far beyond my usual travel anxiety. I am trying to quell it by smothering myself in friends and last-minute research.
I'm missing Folsom. I'm missing Much Ado. California is burning. The economy is wobbly and it's freaking people out. I'm going to Houston to a huge women in engineering conference where I hope to talk to a bunch of awesome potential employers.
I'm also going to be giving another talk at Odd Salon, and possibly be teaching at Dickens. And I feel like I ought to be looking at grad schools rather than startups, or starting my own company or something.
And at the same time I'm looking out the window of this spacious, airy flat with its view of the spire of the V&A like a pinprick on the horizon, and I'm watching the clouds roll ever onwards with their particularly English alacrity and I am both homesick for California and already sadly nostalgic about leaving this place.
I think it comes down to this: I have lots of things waiting for me when I get back. But there's so little sense of place, of community. Six months of not really talking to anyone has not helped this - I now feel disconnected from the tenuous connections I had - and now I feel like I need to start over. A new living space, a new job, a new... something? Direction in life? Who knows.
Six to 12 weeks, really?
My life in the last few weeks has consisted of inventories and decisions about what things I want to keep and which I will leave here. I'm living more or less out of a suitcase. On Monday, they come to take anything not in the suitcases away, and put them on a boat. I may not see them again until just before Christmas. (6-12 weeks? Really?)
I have a general level of anxiety that is simply astronomical. This is far beyond my usual travel anxiety. I am trying to quell it by smothering myself in friends and last-minute research.
I'm missing Folsom. I'm missing Much Ado. California is burning. The economy is wobbly and it's freaking people out. I'm going to Houston to a huge women in engineering conference where I hope to talk to a bunch of awesome potential employers.
I'm also going to be giving another talk at Odd Salon, and possibly be teaching at Dickens. And I feel like I ought to be looking at grad schools rather than startups, or starting my own company or something.
And at the same time I'm looking out the window of this spacious, airy flat with its view of the spire of the V&A like a pinprick on the horizon, and I'm watching the clouds roll ever onwards with their particularly English alacrity and I am both homesick for California and already sadly nostalgic about leaving this place.
I think it comes down to this: I have lots of things waiting for me when I get back. But there's so little sense of place, of community. Six months of not really talking to anyone has not helped this - I now feel disconnected from the tenuous connections I had - and now I feel like I need to start over. A new living space, a new job, a new... something? Direction in life? Who knows.
Six to 12 weeks, really?
Monday, September 7, 2015
The Things You Miss
It's fully September now. Yesterday was the first nice bright day in a little over two weeks, and it feels like somehow during that grey, drizzly fortnight the season changed from summer to fall. I know the retailers felt it, because all of the sudden we're into the rich and muted colors of the fall collections. The trees felt it too: the London plane trees, so bare when we first arrived, so green and leafy betimes, have now begun to shed. First a few, nearly unnoticeable dry leaves skidding about. Now the light is thinner somehow, and a little wan, but it filters through the baring branches nonetheless.
Some part of me feels cheated. I don't feel like I've had a summer to speak of. I know that's empirically, emphatically untrue, given that I've been on "hols" this entire time, and that I spent a full week sweltering in a shop in Old Street, and another week sweltering in Spain, and another week cruising the Mediterranean. But those are active summers, summers without rest, summers that do not allow for such things as relaxing and taking in the views or resting a weary mind.
Besides that, I've missed all of my usual signposts of the turning year. These are the things that make me feel that Time Is Passing (tm) and without them I feel as if I'm in a shiftless limbo. I've missed May Day, two weddings, the Alameda County Fair, the whole entire 4th of July pyrotechnics season, costume college, a handful of Odd Salons and innumerable dances, picnics, and parties. As I type this - 10am London time, 2am Pacific - most of my friends are enjoying a final evening after the Temple Burn before they begin the process of teardown, return, and reacculturation post-Burning Man. I didn't expect to miss Burning Man as hard as I currently am. And that's not quite all - the Gatsby Picnic, which I attended for the first time last year and which I adored, comes hot on the heels of Burning Man. After that, Much Ado About Sebastopol, one of the few Renaissance Faires that I'll attend with gusto - also while we're still here. And Folsom Street Fair happens just before we return so I'll be missing that too.
I feel as if I'm scraping together spilt sand when I say I'm planning to make the closing weekend of the Northern California Renaissance Faire, hoping to hit Burning Man Decompression, and will definitely be going to Le Bal des Vampires. But right now I'm a little lonely, a little depressed, and extremely temporally dislocated.
As a salve, we've been trying to knock things off our touristy "to see" list, and we've been churning through theatrical shows and day trips. This weekend we got through eight things: The Banqueting House (free as we're Historic Royal Palace members), The Ben Franklin House, a trip to Harrod's, and a pub called The Grenadier, then yesterday we caught the Changing of the Guard, went down to Greenwich and saw the Painted Hall and the Observatory, then came back upriver and rode the London Eye.
We live in an area that is below the Heathrow flight path, though not in the window-vibrating sense that I remember from South City or San Jose. But every time I go outside I see a plane arcing overhead towards the west, and some part of me counts the weeks, the days, until that plane is coming for me, coming to take me away from this adventure and bring me home.
Some part of me feels cheated. I don't feel like I've had a summer to speak of. I know that's empirically, emphatically untrue, given that I've been on "hols" this entire time, and that I spent a full week sweltering in a shop in Old Street, and another week sweltering in Spain, and another week cruising the Mediterranean. But those are active summers, summers without rest, summers that do not allow for such things as relaxing and taking in the views or resting a weary mind.
Besides that, I've missed all of my usual signposts of the turning year. These are the things that make me feel that Time Is Passing (tm) and without them I feel as if I'm in a shiftless limbo. I've missed May Day, two weddings, the Alameda County Fair, the whole entire 4th of July pyrotechnics season, costume college, a handful of Odd Salons and innumerable dances, picnics, and parties. As I type this - 10am London time, 2am Pacific - most of my friends are enjoying a final evening after the Temple Burn before they begin the process of teardown, return, and reacculturation post-Burning Man. I didn't expect to miss Burning Man as hard as I currently am. And that's not quite all - the Gatsby Picnic, which I attended for the first time last year and which I adored, comes hot on the heels of Burning Man. After that, Much Ado About Sebastopol, one of the few Renaissance Faires that I'll attend with gusto - also while we're still here. And Folsom Street Fair happens just before we return so I'll be missing that too.
I feel as if I'm scraping together spilt sand when I say I'm planning to make the closing weekend of the Northern California Renaissance Faire, hoping to hit Burning Man Decompression, and will definitely be going to Le Bal des Vampires. But right now I'm a little lonely, a little depressed, and extremely temporally dislocated.
As a salve, we've been trying to knock things off our touristy "to see" list, and we've been churning through theatrical shows and day trips. This weekend we got through eight things: The Banqueting House (free as we're Historic Royal Palace members), The Ben Franklin House, a trip to Harrod's, and a pub called The Grenadier, then yesterday we caught the Changing of the Guard, went down to Greenwich and saw the Painted Hall and the Observatory, then came back upriver and rode the London Eye.
We live in an area that is below the Heathrow flight path, though not in the window-vibrating sense that I remember from South City or San Jose. But every time I go outside I see a plane arcing overhead towards the west, and some part of me counts the weeks, the days, until that plane is coming for me, coming to take me away from this adventure and bring me home.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Step 3: Forgiveness
Part of the mantra of this excellent reddit thread is forgiveness when you don't meet your goals.
Please forgive me, I skipped an evening. Okay, two. In my defense I as a) hosting the amazing Marion at my house, and then seeing the *super awesome* Bend It Like Beckham the Musical (which as a theater person I was totally amazed and impressed by).
We had a study session at the Museum of London, which was fantastic - we got to look at a number of corsets from the 1850s and 60s, including some very special ones from around 1853. (I can't spill the details too much!) It's always amazing to me what a little goodwill will get you - I was allowed to "ride along" on short notice after my first visit a few weeks back when I donated copies of my pictures to help flesh out the museum's database. Turns out, object records in large collections are very sparse, so any information is often helpful. Plus, it feels good to share. :)
We followed that with a walk down through St Paul's Churchyard, then south to the Thames and across the Millennium Bridge, past the Tate and the Globe, under the Southwark bridge, past the Clink and the remains of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, the Golden Hinde, and through the Borough Market, then took the Tube and a red bus to visit another of the costume community. I love meeting new folks, especially mellow cheerful, incredibly lovely tea-giving new folks. It was a delightful afternoon.
Right now I'm taking a break from a marathon session sorting, photographing, and inventorying my mudlarking finds for the export license. I'm about... halfway through, I'd say? The Chelsea finds were the biggest bag, and there'll likely be more of them soonish. (It's been WEEKS I tell you. I am ITCHING to get down to the foreshore again, augh augh augh.) Entertainingly, the gent at the Arts Council who's been so helpful so far took a look at my images and went "hm, we only license items over 100 years old, so you can leave out the 2-pence pieces." The ones I'd left in for scale. Whoops! He advised me to use a ruler next time, which... makes sense.
I'm still feeling a little queasy after this week's food poisoning, but I'm so, soooo much better. We might be headed to Oxford this weekend, or possibly the Cotswolds for some walking, or maybe to Hampton Court for the tail end of the food thing, or or or... so much depends on the weather, which was gorgeous this morning, but is clouding up again.
It's definitely starting to feel like fall here. It's a little disconcerting because I haven't had any of the markers of my usual year to tell me that the summer is passing by. All of my friends are headed to Burning Man. I've missed Costume College and so much more already, and I'm missing Burning Man and Gatsby and and and... It's a trade off, and one that feels painful right now, but that I expect will have been a bargain when I look back on it.
Please forgive me, I skipped an evening. Okay, two. In my defense I as a) hosting the amazing Marion at my house, and then seeing the *super awesome* Bend It Like Beckham the Musical (which as a theater person I was totally amazed and impressed by).
We had a study session at the Museum of London, which was fantastic - we got to look at a number of corsets from the 1850s and 60s, including some very special ones from around 1853. (I can't spill the details too much!) It's always amazing to me what a little goodwill will get you - I was allowed to "ride along" on short notice after my first visit a few weeks back when I donated copies of my pictures to help flesh out the museum's database. Turns out, object records in large collections are very sparse, so any information is often helpful. Plus, it feels good to share. :)
We followed that with a walk down through St Paul's Churchyard, then south to the Thames and across the Millennium Bridge, past the Tate and the Globe, under the Southwark bridge, past the Clink and the remains of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, the Golden Hinde, and through the Borough Market, then took the Tube and a red bus to visit another of the costume community. I love meeting new folks, especially mellow cheerful, incredibly lovely tea-giving new folks. It was a delightful afternoon.
Right now I'm taking a break from a marathon session sorting, photographing, and inventorying my mudlarking finds for the export license. I'm about... halfway through, I'd say? The Chelsea finds were the biggest bag, and there'll likely be more of them soonish. (It's been WEEKS I tell you. I am ITCHING to get down to the foreshore again, augh augh augh.) Entertainingly, the gent at the Arts Council who's been so helpful so far took a look at my images and went "hm, we only license items over 100 years old, so you can leave out the 2-pence pieces." The ones I'd left in for scale. Whoops! He advised me to use a ruler next time, which... makes sense.
I'm still feeling a little queasy after this week's food poisoning, but I'm so, soooo much better. We might be headed to Oxford this weekend, or possibly the Cotswolds for some walking, or maybe to Hampton Court for the tail end of the food thing, or or or... so much depends on the weather, which was gorgeous this morning, but is clouding up again.
It's definitely starting to feel like fall here. It's a little disconcerting because I haven't had any of the markers of my usual year to tell me that the summer is passing by. All of my friends are headed to Burning Man. I've missed Costume College and so much more already, and I'm missing Burning Man and Gatsby and and and... It's a trade off, and one that feels painful right now, but that I expect will have been a bargain when I look back on it.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Nonzero
It's only almost 1am, but I'm still getting a tiny bit of writing in, so that's something, right? Baby steps. Baby steps.
Feeling much better today, though after I tried eating non-rice items my stomach started gurgling again - so we'll see.
Lindsay linked us to a long Reddit thread on getting motivated, and the thing was called "No Zero Days" - the idea being that you don't have any days when you do nothing.
So today, I did laundry, cleaned up a bunch more of my mudlarking finds so that I can inventory and send the export paperwork, started the inventory for my first box of stuff to send home, did a bit of sewing on my Regency day dress for bath, and finally got up the courage to cut the linen tablecloth that I'm using for the ballgown. I also read and closed a ton of the "interesting article I'll get to later" tabs that'd piled up. So that's not zero.
But now it's one. (See what I did there?) And I'm going to bed.
Feeling much better today, though after I tried eating non-rice items my stomach started gurgling again - so we'll see.
Lindsay linked us to a long Reddit thread on getting motivated, and the thing was called "No Zero Days" - the idea being that you don't have any days when you do nothing.
So today, I did laundry, cleaned up a bunch more of my mudlarking finds so that I can inventory and send the export paperwork, started the inventory for my first box of stuff to send home, did a bit of sewing on my Regency day dress for bath, and finally got up the courage to cut the linen tablecloth that I'm using for the ballgown. I also read and closed a ton of the "interesting article I'll get to later" tabs that'd piled up. So that's not zero.
But now it's one. (See what I did there?) And I'm going to bed.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Baby steps
I just wrote this to a friend who reached out after my last post: "I think the big thing is to just start writing, even a little bit, every day. And go from there, I guess?" So even if it's just a tiny thing, here is my little bit for today.
I'm back from a whirlwind, exhausting trip around the Mediterranean. It should tell you something when your fitness tracker's weekly step total doubles when you're "on holiday".
And I'm sick with some kind of stomach thing. In the past five months I've vomited more frequently than in the last two years. This isn't a reflection on the quality of the food so much as on the lack of control one has over one's food when traveling and eating out a lot. Some of those things I *knew* didn't sit right. Some of them I sort of expected to come back and haunt me but I didn't have better options.
Not this time though, and this was new (and I'll cut it for those of you who don't want to know):
I'm back from a whirlwind, exhausting trip around the Mediterranean. It should tell you something when your fitness tracker's weekly step total doubles when you're "on holiday".
And I'm sick with some kind of stomach thing. In the past five months I've vomited more frequently than in the last two years. This isn't a reflection on the quality of the food so much as on the lack of control one has over one's food when traveling and eating out a lot. Some of those things I *knew* didn't sit right. Some of them I sort of expected to come back and haunt me but I didn't have better options.
Not this time though, and this was new (and I'll cut it for those of you who don't want to know):
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Fermata
I haven't written in awhile.
Let me start over. I haven't written in awhile, because I've been depressed and lonely, even among all the wonders of London.
No, that's only part of it. Let me try again.
In mental health circles right now there's this concept of the "media diet", which is to say to cease reading and looking at things that have a negative impact on your mood, mental health, and ability to function.
Yesterday I unfollowed some people on Facebook (unfollowed, not unfriended mind you) because I realized that this is a thing I needed to do.
Here in London I'm basically living in a bubble of silence. I barely know anyone here, I have Mike for company and occasionally meet someone I know from Elsewhere for coffee (or randomly on the tube, or randomly in Kew gardens, etc etc etc). But I have so few friends here and no real way to meet more. I realized that in an average week I talk to three people in person who aren't Mike, and all three are people who I'm buying things from. Occasionally a tourist in the neighborhood will ask me for directions. Once in awhile there'll be one of those bizarre, rare "strike up a conversation with a Londoner" moments. But they're maybe a monthly occurrence if at all.
And so I've done what depressed, lonely people tend to do these days: I trawl the internet endlessly, especially Facebook and things that make me feel more connected to people in my old home. A lot of people have already forgotten me, which was a bit of a shock; in the end having a job that you work 10 hours a day is apparently about the same as moving 5000+ miles away. People don't see you at events and you cease to exist.
But there are some trends in my social network which I just can't handle, to wit, that people on both the left and right are sealioning the shit out of each other, making anyone who expresses even a small disagreement the subject of harassment and emotional threats. This isn't healthy. This isn't dialogue, discourse, or the mature civility that I crave. And in the end what I realized, is that this is silencing me.
I don't want to write about anything substantial because I'm worried what people will say. Not because I care necessarily that they disagree, but because I'm so *tired* of feeling like I'm fighting everyone, like everyone is going to jump all over me for disagreeing. That's silencing. And then recently, for not agreeing loudly enough. That was the breaking point for me.
I can only take care of one person at a time, and right now that person needs to be me. I've done a shit job of it recently and that needs to stop. I don't have the energy (because fuck you and your fucking spoons) to handle the crises of the entire world; I'm burnt out and it's 1pm in London and I haven't even had a shower or breakfast yet today.
I hope, and please if you're reading this, hold me to it, I hope I can write tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Even little things, even a bit. I have so much research backlogged, and I have so many story ideas simmering along, waiting for me to come back to health.
Let me start over. I haven't written in awhile, because I've been depressed and lonely, even among all the wonders of London.
No, that's only part of it. Let me try again.
In mental health circles right now there's this concept of the "media diet", which is to say to cease reading and looking at things that have a negative impact on your mood, mental health, and ability to function.
Yesterday I unfollowed some people on Facebook (unfollowed, not unfriended mind you) because I realized that this is a thing I needed to do.
Here in London I'm basically living in a bubble of silence. I barely know anyone here, I have Mike for company and occasionally meet someone I know from Elsewhere for coffee (or randomly on the tube, or randomly in Kew gardens, etc etc etc). But I have so few friends here and no real way to meet more. I realized that in an average week I talk to three people in person who aren't Mike, and all three are people who I'm buying things from. Occasionally a tourist in the neighborhood will ask me for directions. Once in awhile there'll be one of those bizarre, rare "strike up a conversation with a Londoner" moments. But they're maybe a monthly occurrence if at all.
And so I've done what depressed, lonely people tend to do these days: I trawl the internet endlessly, especially Facebook and things that make me feel more connected to people in my old home. A lot of people have already forgotten me, which was a bit of a shock; in the end having a job that you work 10 hours a day is apparently about the same as moving 5000+ miles away. People don't see you at events and you cease to exist.
But there are some trends in my social network which I just can't handle, to wit, that people on both the left and right are sealioning the shit out of each other, making anyone who expresses even a small disagreement the subject of harassment and emotional threats. This isn't healthy. This isn't dialogue, discourse, or the mature civility that I crave. And in the end what I realized, is that this is silencing me.
I don't want to write about anything substantial because I'm worried what people will say. Not because I care necessarily that they disagree, but because I'm so *tired* of feeling like I'm fighting everyone, like everyone is going to jump all over me for disagreeing. That's silencing. And then recently, for not agreeing loudly enough. That was the breaking point for me.
I can only take care of one person at a time, and right now that person needs to be me. I've done a shit job of it recently and that needs to stop. I don't have the energy (because fuck you and your fucking spoons) to handle the crises of the entire world; I'm burnt out and it's 1pm in London and I haven't even had a shower or breakfast yet today.
I hope, and please if you're reading this, hold me to it, I hope I can write tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Even little things, even a bit. I have so much research backlogged, and I have so many story ideas simmering along, waiting for me to come back to health.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)