Newport

At the end of August I drove to Providence with my best friend and stayed a short while.  It was rainy the entire time, even this day, but we drove to Newport and found a vista and parked the car and got out and a blue sky suddenly peeked out just enough to remind me how long it had been since I'd taken a deep breath.  I felt exceedingly out of place in the town, but exceptionally in place in the shallows on the rocks covered in sea plants and the teeniest baby mussels and the laziest hermit crabs in the whole world.

Hard habit

It's hard to get back into the habit of writing here.  It's odd because for so many years writing online was a part of my daily routine.  I started blahgging in 7th or 8th grade, before anybody had a sassy name for it.  I built a dumpy looking but highly functional Tripod page where I posted "Dear Diary, Today was fun..."-type entries, photos, embarrassing poetry, and an extensive alphabetical list of bands I listened to, with links to their websites or UBL entries.  I was a lonely nerd and the internet offered me many solaces.

If I look back at my various online journals and weblogs from the past fifteen years (?!!), very clear patterns emerge.  Up until a few of years ago, when I've been at my most sad, lonely, stressed, lost, etc., I blahg noticeably(/exponentially) more.  When my life has been on the up and up, my entries are generally shorter and farther apart, but still clearly convey the state of things.  At some point all my posts began getting more concise, less all-revealing, and generally infrequent, for probably a variety of reasons.  Facebook (but not Twitter) certainly played a role, but also I just have had more and more people to spend time and share with and perhaps as a result have felt less of a need to vent my life to the internet.

All this to say, I need to find some new inspiration lest I post nothing but entries that could be boiled down to one of the following titles:

"Grad school is so hard."
"My boyfriend is so great."
"My cat is sooo cute."
"Bikes are so fun."
"Indian food is so delicious."
"I so need caffeine."

Hmm. Maybe I stopped blahgging so much simply because I ran out of things that felt worth talking about in such a forum. HMMMM.

Since it got pulled before...

(and will again)

Ookay okay okay okay okay

Dear Blahg,

Please forgive my absence. I spent the summer trying to pretend I wasn't in grad school. I spent the summer traveling and cooking and riding bikes and watching baseball and making big plans and learning big things and falling in love.  And it's all been way more fun than blahgging.  No offense.

But now school's back! Huzzah! Huzzah. No really, I'm excited. I'll prove it by checking in more often. Starting now.

Sincerely,
Michelle

Whoamg, denouement?

I sure hope so.  The past few weeks have been so, so rough.  Getting the first part of my thesis report together was a nightmare and a half, though my presentation and panel review yesterday went much better than I was expecting and it was thoroughly helpful and gave my momentum a boost.

After a post-panel drink with Carolyn, I headed home to kick off my heels and pull on some layers for what will hopefully be the last frigid critical mass until fall comes back around.  What ensued involved was falling a couple of times, being called "Hot Pants" by a police officer, my first bike-car contact, not getting to eat Indian food like a certain map promised, small and funny apartment parties, small and weird other apartment parties, small and awesome pool party, riding home with wet hair and clothes at 3am.  Total blast.  Dragons.  Fake money.  Sauna.  Pizza.  Band-aids.


And today I went with Carolyn to Working Bikes where we found her a nice Ralieigh mixte that she was happy with.  Yay bike shopping! And on the way home I swung by the Renegade Handmade store for the bake sale my friend Sue was having to raise money for Haiti and while there I bought some delicious vegan (and non-vegan) treats and a great winter bike hat (that would have been very useful yesterday).

I'm out of energy.  Did not get enough sleep last night.  This post is over.

Chromes, Greys

I want a chrome bicycle so bad my guts ache!  There is a chrome Carlton that works in the building next to my school. I've sat in the coffee shop window a few times to stake it out and see who comes to unlock it and ride it home, but I can never stick around long enough.

It's gloriously mild today, and thoroughly foggy.  Despite being in a 9th floor window a block from the lake, I might as well be a day away, as it's enshrouded by the most solid physical manifestation of grey that I've ever seen.  Like this, but tangible... and damp... and everywhere:




I'm making some good(ish) headway on the new thesis research.  Looks like I'll be visiting Detroit a couple of times in June for a few days each trip, plus (funds allowing) Philadelphia, Providence, and Portland?  Maybe San Francisco while I'm on the west coast if they have programs that suit my research.  It's weird to suddenly feel very centered, when less than a week ago I was a total. wreck.  Maybe I'm just in denial. Hm.

Worst blahgger ever

Worst week of grad school ever.

I have been working on my thesis proposal for a month, and then it got changed on Wednesday and now I have to do all that month of work all over again, but in a week this time, and when that all sank in I just hit a mental wall and cried a little and drank some whiskey in a stair well by myself (don't worry, there's a first time, and a last time, for everything, and it's exciting when those happen at the same time!).  Then I realized that I care about my new topic 100 times more than my old one (and it's far less naive and self-righteous) and all was again right with the world.  I'm noticing that days I skip my bike ride to school are harder to cope with than days when I click down the hall to class sweating and red-nosed.

So bike updates: I might be getting a new bike tomorrow.  Yes, that will mean I have three bikes, but seriously, one of them is getting sold as soon as this weather looks a little more reliable and I can make my money back on it. And I got lobster gloves and toe covers last week just in time for RDDR.... oh wait!  I never posted about the ride I dreamed up and planned with Amanda and Gabe- The Ride!Drink!Dance!Ride! Ride.  Here's the flier I made for it...

 

 The turn out was great. 20 people at the start? Lots of riding and dancing and I'm already looking forward to April's RDDR, RDDR:EUROTRASH.  We'll be hitting up Polish Country on the west side of Chicago and starting at a Polish buffet where I guess I'll eat cabbage and boiled potatoes. And dance.  Click below for more RDDR:INAUGURAL pics...

...we were pretending to be riding our bikes in time to the beat. NERDZ.

What else?  What haven't I covered? School's hard. I've been eating less real food and more ice cream lately than is healthy or good for anybody.  I've been buying groupons (and not redeeming them- YET) so I can eat fancy foods on a grad school budget.  The weather was mouthwatering for a couple of days, but the rain's moved in and now I absolutely must invest, finally, in rain gear. Somehow I imagined this town just going from snowy to sunny with zero liquid precipitation in between. Sigh.  Scout still hates the other cats.  I'm going to visit Detroit soon to check out the Rivera mural as "research" for my art history paper.  I shot a gun for the first time today. Then I shot another one.  Two of us went through 150 rounds really really fast. I want to go again.  I cut my hand on a library book drop box.  I finished my homework early.  I realized that unless I make peanut butter cookies, it takes months and months to finish one little jar of peanut butter.

And in a minute I'll post some pictures of shooting and the Blue Bike I Want To Sell, plus here- a picture I never posted after I first finished the paint job on my Gitane...

 

Oh, here:

The Bridgestone I'll be selling asap. Comfy seat, goofy bar tape. Nice rack (heh) that now lives on the Gitane. Somehow it's just never felt like my bike since I got it home. Too bad.

Aaand shooting... so weird.