Tell Me

Hello, neglected little blog, and those of you who read it. There are many things I have wanted to tell you these past few weeks, but I’ve been bad about posting (clearly).  I hope to tell them to you soon, in a truncated way.

It’s been a long past few weeks.

I went to Missouri and then I went to Oregon and now I am on the alternate list at both of those schools and have been rejected from one (Minnesota) and, so, am into none right now.  I have some more interviews coming up, but it’s not the easiest thing to stay upbeat in the face of all this non-acceptance.  That’s pretty much where I am right now … unaccepted, but hopeful, but tired.

In the interest of posting something, though, and centering myself somehow, I want to share a poem with you.  It’s called “The Summer Day” – hard to channel right now, I know, but try – and it was written by Mary Oliver.  I first came across it about two years ago now, and the last few lines, they scared and inspired the hell out of me.  In a way, they’re what got me into this whole situation, and they might help to carry me through.

So, here it is:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I do have a plan, Mary. I just need some patience, and a little positivity.

Favorites of 2009 Mix

I’ve never really been one to make end-of-year lists; there are enough of them out there already. But this year I thought I might participate in fun-a-day and use it as a way to revive the playlist project I set out to work on some months back … so, playlist-a-day.  A playlist of my favorite songs from 2009 seemed a good place to start but, predictably, I got pretty hung up on it and so have only now finished.  Sixteen days, one playlist.  I’ll be spending a lot of time on planes and in airports and various buses and shuttles in the coming weeks, I figure I’ll make it up then.

Anyway, here is the final list (which you can play through entirely on blip.fm), with some song-by-song commentary below:

AK’s Favorite Songs of 2009
01. Blood Bank (Bon Iver)
02. Two Weeks (Grizzly Bear)
03. Stay Alive (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)
04. Are You Still in Vallda? (jj)
05. Lisztomania (Phoenix)
06. All Your Secrets (Yo La Tengo)
07. The Wind and the Dove (Bill Callahan)
08. Bear (The Antlers)
09. Stillness is the Move (Dirty Projectors)
10. My Girls (Animal Collective)
11. I Have Loved You Wrong (The Swell Season)
12. Flirted With You All My Life (Vic Chesnutt)

Some of these songs are not long-standing loves of mine, I confess.  Being so busy with school, I did a poorer-than-usual job of listening to new music and really getting to know a range of albums, and much of the time I’ve spent on this over the past few weeks was put into giving some things a more thorough listen to make sure I captured the highlights.  “Stay Alive” and “All Your Secrets” in particular are songs I just came around to recently, though I like them a whole lot. Similarly, I’d forgotten about the Swell Season (some may more readily recognize them by name: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) album until a few weeks ago, but I enjoy it all the way through.

Meanwhile, other songs were very, very clear choices.  My super favorites of this list are tracks 1, 2 and 10.  The Blood Bank EP came out in January of 2009, and that song was a constant and much enjoyed presence throughout the year.  “My Girls” was entirely undeniably the jam of the year, and remains the reigning ringtone on my telephone.  “Two Weeks” is probably one of the more thoroughly lovely songs I’ve ever heard (and you know how I dig those Grizzly Bear boys).

Though it came out relatively late in the year, I knew as soon as I started putting the playlist together that “Flirted With You All My Life” would need to be on it.  I can’t say that I’ve really been a fan of Vic Chesnutt – I actually hated/just plain did not get his set when I saw him opening for Jonathan Richman a few years ago – but I heard him on Fresh Air a few months ago and was surprised to find I loved every song they played, so I looked into At the Cut, and it is powerful stuff.  This song in particular, described by Chesnutt as his break-up song with death, is made even more devastating by his recent suicide.

The list could have been much longer (it pained me to exclude John Vanderslice’s “Too Much Time” and Andrew Bird’s “Not a Robot, But a Ghost,” and I had a hard time figuring out how to extract one song from the Decemberists’s The Hazards of Love), but I decided to stick to my admittedly arbitrary 12-song limit to keep things manageable.  So, one down, 30 to go.

And, of course, I’d love to hear about your favorite songs of 2009, if you’d care to share them.

Ramble of a January

I like being busy. Having things to do means that I need to get things done, and feeling like I am getting things done is one of my favorite ways to feel. Movement begets momentum. Things happen.

When I’m not busy, I am pretty bad at making myself do things. I sit down to do work but don’t make it ten minutes before I decide I need to take a shower.  I take a shower and then sit down to do work again, this time in my bathrobe as my hair is drying, but then my toes get cold and I stand up, resolving to get dressed, but then I get overwhelmed by wardrobe decisions and just sit on my bed for a while not doing anything in particular.  Then I just put socks on instead of getting dressed and am determined to do work, but then it suddenly becomes imperative that I catch up on the several months of Wondermark and A Softer World that I neglected last semester.  You get the idea.

This was all happening last Saturday, me dawdling like a champ not wanting to work on my last application, when I decided to cut my losses and just go for a walk, in spite of the sub-freezing temperature.

For a while I took the route of the 32 bus, which I ride to my field placement, because I wanted to revisit this mural on Girard:

and then it was across the street to the park, where the sun tried and failed to heat the cold world:

I crossed Kelly Drive, which was harrowing, by the way, and doubled back along Boat House Row toward the Waterworks, where there was a freeze on:

I was having a really lovely, serene moment watching the water flow over this whatever-it-is-you’d-call-it (I call it a fall)

when I was suddenly joined by a pack of about 8 extremely chatter-y 5-7 year olds whose guardians were far too far in tow, if you ask me. I did not like it. Sans chatter-y children, though, it may be one of my new favorite places in the city.

I’d brought my art museum member card along for the walk in case I ended up right outside it, as I did, and so I went in for a few hours.  I found a new favorite room, which I’ll tell you about another time.  I think that my favorite painting of the visit was this one, called “A Glow, Evening” by Ralph Blakelock:

I’m happy to report that I did eventually finish that last application (so, all twelve finished and submitted hooray) … not on the Saturday in question, but then, I think that is what break is for.  Not doing much of anything on any particular day, save walking, and thinking, and seeing.

Two Zero Zero Nine

It’s 2010 now, and I’ve mostly been doing freelance work for my former employer, watching television shows over the internet with my roommate (Pushing Daises is our show of the moment … so charming) and generally lounging around. Now that general worry about school and all that isn’t waking me up at 7:00 every morning, I’ve rediscovered sleeping in. It’s kind of heaven. I’ll need to get back onto a normal person’s schedule in a week or so, but I’m enjoying the unlimited snoozes and 10am wake up times while I can.

In between contract work and Jersey Shore episodes (terrible), I’ve been thinking back on the past year as well. Below is a survey that I’ve completed each year for about four years now, on whatever blog I’m keeping at the time. So, here’s my 2009:

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
In roughly chronological order: began the year at a party among friends, bought an iPod (nano), started a WordPress blog, applied to graduate school, took an international trip to visit a friend, learned to read the Cyrillic alphabet, promptly forgot how to read the Cyrillic alphabet, got into a graduate program, participated in a bike ride bar crawl, got rejected by a graduate program, sang a song in a karaoke setting, got a tattoo, witnessed a self-officiated wedding, ran for more than five minutes without wanting to die, edited a book, took out a loan, drove down to the shore with my sister, rode a bike no-handed, quit a job and had it stick, lived someplace with a private roof deck, declared a sports team dead to me, was so drunk in the August sun just like in the song, started a graduate program, took and scored the real Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (INTJ, btw fyi lol), helped someone resolve a crisis, felt a real and true sense of professional direction, constructed a genogram, biked to and from East Falls, walked across the Spring Garden bridge, participated in academic research, applied to PhD programs. So many PhD programs.

Artists seen live for the first time this year, in order of my enthusiasm about them: Frightened Rabbit, Blitzen Trapper, Beirut, Doves, Andrew Bird, Ra Ra Riot, John Vanderslice, Will Oldham, Department of Eagles, Lykke Li, M. Ward, Bill Callahan, The Tallest Man on Earth, Mayer Hawthorne & The County, Here We Go Magic (2x, neither really on purpose), Say Hi, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Rock Plaza Central, Coldplay

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for this year?
Last year I resolved to “be healthier,” which I left deliberately vague. I made my share of bad decisions last year, but I think I made some good ones as well. And, medically, it was my best year in a while. I also resolved to play the guitar on more days than I did not. That resolution I did not keep. So, one resolution is a question mark and the other was kind of a bust.

A resolution for this year is to find some more balance than I did last semester, and to make time to do the things that I care about, like writing this blog, and listening to music, and being in touch with my friends.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Two more of my former colleagues are now parents. Babies all over the place.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother’s husband. These things happen.

5. What countries did you visit?
Bulgaria! And, if airports count, England. Rachel’s luggage had an overnight stay there … the rest of us just spent a few hours.  My trip photos are on flickr, should you be interested.

Here are three of my favorites:

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A clear vision of the next few years … where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing. Ideally I’ll be starting a PhD in counseling psychology in the fall, but it’s not certain that I’ll get that opportunity (I’m very hopeful but trying to be realistic) and even more uncertain where at it’ll be, if I do.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
On February 6th we left for Bulgaria.
August 7th was my real and actual last day at my former job.
On September 8th, I started school.
On December 1st and 15th I had applications due. Those were big dates for me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Staying the course and getting all those PhD applications out while also handling school work and a field placement and making some friends in the process.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I’m not inclined to beat myself up about anything this year. I could certainly have been better at staying in touch with people. I also managed to miss a bunch of concerts I’d wanted to go to (Dodos and Dirty Projectors especially) because of homework and general tiredness.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a flu thing pretty badly in January but otherwise nothing I can recall. I was at no point in 2009 a patient in an emergency room: an improvement over the past two years.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Everyone’s, for something, in some way. Good job, you guys.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one in my life, fortunately.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Tuition, rent, transcripts and GRE score reports and application fees, passably business casual attire for my field placement.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Career development theory and career assessment (nerd alert). Existential psychotherapy.  Seeing WHY? and Grizzly Bear live. Leaving the old job and making a change. Hanging with my parents’ dog. Founders Breakfast Stout. Owning a duplex printer (I really am very excited about this).

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
“My Girls” by Animal Collective, just because the album came out so early in the year and so was around for most of it. I made the hook my ringtone months and months ago, and any time I have thought that it was maybe time for a change, I could not think of a song I’d rather have.

Bon Iver’s “Blood Bank” was another of my most loved and listened to songs.  It’s all intensity and realistic hopefulness … a meditation, almost, on connection.  And that was kind of my year.

Also possibly “Don’t Stop Believin’.” I had that as my ringtone a little while (from the guitar solo at three minutes and five seconds through the chorus) but soon concluded that it worked better as my weekday morning alarm sound. Seriously, there are few better songs to wake up to.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Definitely happier.

b) thinner or fatter?
Slightly thinner maybe? I don’t know.

c) richer or poorer?
Waaay poorer. Being a full-time student’ll do that.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Riding my bike, practicing yoga, volunteering with the shelter dogs.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Watching television, spending whole days hungover and ineffective, being a crazy anxious person.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With the family.

21. How did you spend New Years?
With some tasty beers, my sofa, and The State on DVD.  I did go out to dinner that night … so, not a total recluse.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
No. How disappointing.

23. How many one-night stands?
Zero. How wholesome.
Not that I’d admit it here if I’d had any (which I didn’t, mom). I should really change this question, maybe to something like:
How many delicious brownie sundaes did you make with ingredients you picked up from Whole Foods on a whim on the way home from some bar?
Five. At least. How indulgent.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Lost, for the too-small portion of the year it was on.  I don’t think it’s a good show, per se, but I had good watching company and am totally hooked at this point.  And I learned that 24 is another show that’s great to watch with regular a regular Jack Bauer buddy.

On DVD, I finally got into (and tore through all of) The Wire.  Also delightful: Friday Night Lights.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nah, I don’t mess with that kind of negativity.  It’s not healthy.

26. What was the best book you read?
I felt really inspired by The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom, recommended by Sarah (thank you).

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Frightened Rabbit is my favorite band that I listened to for the first time in 2009. As I’ve written before, their album The Midnight Organ Flight is really freakin’ excellent.

Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos” was perhaps the most powerful single song I heard for the first time in ‘09.

I also got really deep into WHY?’s album Elephant Eyelash this year.  Looove it.  I have been talking those guys up to anyone who’ll listen lately, but don’t know that I’ve converted any fans yet.  Yet.

28. What did you want and get?
Into school.  A new start.  Some new friends.  Mentors in the field.

29. What did you want and not get?
A one-bedroom apartment for the school year, though I have to say it all worked out for the better.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Up, I think. Also really enjoyed (500) Days of Summer and, I am not ashamed to say, Sherlock Holmes.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I had a lovely highrise roof deck party. Poker happened also. I turned 27.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Some sustained romance, though really the ultimate goal is love/a partnership with someone, some day.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
A little less casual and a little more adult. Blazers and scarves.  Cowl neck sweaters are, like, a revelation. I am pretty much great at biking in heels now. Walking in heels, still working on it.

34. What kept you sane?
Bitching with/to classmates. Enjoying beers and brunches with my other folks. Watching pretty much everything there is to watch on TLC with my roommate.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Yoni Wolf (of WHY?) and Grizzly Bear, collectively.  I have an even bigger crush on Thomas Lennon after seeing 17 Again (don’t you judge me).  Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law were both dead sexy and very silly (my favorite combination) in Sherlock Holmes.  David Lynch’s twitter feed is just lovely.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I had to stop following the healthcare reform goings on. I was so anxious about my own immediate shit with school and applications that I couldn’t handle any external stressors.

I’ve taken steps to get involved in gay marriage advocacy.  That is an issue I feel pretty strongly about.

37. Who did you miss?
All of my folks who are elsewhere, as always.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I acquired many new people this year … going back to school will do that. I think my most favorite of those people know who they are, no need to be all high school about it.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Puppies, wine, and laptops don’t mix.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“Ain’t this just like the present
to be showin’ up like this?”

Wintertimes

Winter break.  Man.  I had forgotten what this is like, having more time than I have things I need to do.  No obligations, no structure.  It’s been a little magical, and a lot lazy.  I’ve caught up on whole seasons of television shows (Dexter and How I Met Your Mother, most noteably), seen some movies (more on that later), read almost all of a book, caught up with folks, and unwound.  And I’d managed to wind myself up pretty tightly.

Not quite sure where to start, or where I left off.  There was that blizzard, let’s start there.  Nothing to punctuate the beginning of winter break like a tremendous quantity of snow.  Here’s a picture of my roof deck a few hours into the weathering:

It was really very serene, staying in that day watching the city get good and blanketed from a warm, dry place. The next day I had thought that maybe I would build a snowperson on the deck, but I could not even get the door open for all the snow:

Getting around Philly after a snowstorm is one of my least favorite activities, what with its imperfectly cleared streets and sidewalks and my own lack of appropriate footwear.   I did, though, venture out on Sunday for a Tria caper with Lauren, and again on Monday to pick something up at school and have lunch with some folks.  Lots of near slips and puddle-y intersections, but the most harrowing experience was crossing the Spring Garden bridge.  I hadn’t realized until I’d already committed to that route that the sidewalk would not be the littlest bit shoveled or plowed, and so I had to walk atop a solid foot of snow, putting the rail that keeps one from falling into the Schuylkill at knee-height rather than waist-height.  I didn’t end up in the river, though, so all’s well that ends well.

Transportation annoyances aside, the city in the snow is something I really like.

On the Tuesday before Christmas, I went out to my parents’ house and camped out there for almost a week.  I was a little anxious about the trip, as my mother’s mother, who is 83 and into some advanced dementia, was coming on Christmas eve to stay for an indefinite period of time, and I wasn’t quite sure what that would look like or how it would go.  It ended up being fine, though, except that my brother’s girlfriend and I couldn’t watch Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares because my grandmother made some comment every thirty seconds on the profanity or his taking the lord’s name in vain, each time having forgotten that she’d already said something.  Let’s not talk about dementia, with its relentless worsening of symptoms or hereditary nature; it only makes me anxious.

Christmas itself was nice.  My mother’s Christmas tree design philosophy is something akin to “more is more,” as you can see below.  My parents have tall ceilings in their living room and 9-12 foot trees are the norm, with every branch adorned with lights and ornaments and garlands galore.  The tree didn’t fall over this year (their trees often do), but there was a definite lean to it.

I received some books and DVDs, a few gift cards and so much beer (a case of a Chimay Blue from my father and a River Horse variety case from my brother and his girlfriend) that I almost feel compelled to have a party.  On the other side of the gifting process, I managed to let myself be so busy that I didn’t manage to get anyone a gift, and realized this year when I had nothing for anyone that giving is actually my favorite part of the day, by far. So, a mistake I won’t make again.

A reliably enjoyable element of any trip to the parental homestead is the company of their dog, Moose. I had a nice time being followed around the house, watching him romp through the snow, and seeing him cower on the porch when the neighbors yappy little dogs barged into our yard and started barking at me and my mother as we hung lights on the front porch. My mother refers to him as the Monk of the dog world … it’s a jungle out there, and he’s afraid of pretty much all of it.

The Moose dog has never made a great photographic subject, but this one of him is not bad.  At just four years old he is going grey, like I am:

I’ve been back in the city since Monday and mostly it’s been more lounging.  Staying up late and sleeping in.  Some dinners and drinks with good friends who’ve moved away and are here visiting.  I feel pretty well refreshed and ready for the new year ahead.  I’ve some resolutions in the works and hopes for what the coming year will hold.  More on that in a little while.

Finalsville

So, I am mostly finished with those PhD applications – 11 down, 1 to go – and have been in this place for about a week now.  What I’d kind of forgotten, or maybe overlooked completely, was that on the way out of applicationland there would be a little place called finalsville to get through.  So, that was a mite crazy.  One big huge group project and two exams later, I’ve come out on the other side and am all finished with the semester.  There was some drama yesterday around a departmental decision regarding one of our finals that was reversed a few hours later (I balk at broadcasting institutional dysfunction in a public forum, but comment if you’re interested and I’ll explain via email), so after that emotional roller coaster, I am extra looking forward to having a break.

I never did get around to writing about the courses I took this semester.  Sorry about that, interested parties.  My classes were Counseling Theories and Interventions (my favorite theories are existentialist and constructivist, neither of which were covered in the class, though cognitive and PCT are pretty rad as well), Ethics and Professional Principles in Counseling (in which I learned that the only thing that is completely black and white is that one should not have sex with one’s clients), Psychological Assessment  and Psychological Practicum, which included a 2-hour weekly lecture, the 8-10 hr/week field placement I’ve mentioned, and a 2-hour weekly seminar.  Next semester I’ll be taking a qualitative research methods class, another semester of practicum, Group Counseling, and Personality and Social Development.  In the meantime, I’m going to catch up on television I’ve missed (Dexter and Californication, here I come), spend time with my family and friends, hang with the Moose dog, hope to hear back from schools and try to work my way back to a more normal way of being.

Yeah.  Let’s do this.

Applicationland

So, I have not been posting very frequently at all these days, obviously, and that is because I have not been doing all that much of interest. I read. I write. I stress, and have the occasional brunch. That is pretty much it.

The major focus has been my PhD applications; personal statements, recommendations, transcripts, resumes … applicationland, that is where I’m living lately. I’ve submitted five, which feels really good, but have seven to go. Add to this the fact that it’s the end of the semester with projects coming due and exams on the horizon and oh, how I am tired. Three weeks from now, life will be gravy, but it’s going to be a very nose-to-the-grindystone meantime.

I’ve been taking the occasional break, don’t worry. Tonight, for example (it is after 1:00am as I write this), I napped from 7:00 to 10:30 (this was not really intentional), and on Saturday I watched a several hours of “What Not to Wear” with my roommate, which brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about.

So I was watching a lot of “What Not to Wear” this weekend, and seeing all these people looking so much better after Nick Arrojo or that new guy worked their magics, I got to thinking that maybe I should cut all my hair off (and by that, just to be clear, I mean “maybe I should have a skilled professional cut all my hair off”).  I’d decided to grow it out some time ago after wearing it short for years, and it had gotten pretty long, but mostly I wasn’t doing anything with it and I was feeling restless and like it was time for a change.

But then I thought about it some more, and reminded myself how long I’d worked to grow it out, and decided that if I had it all cut off, I would probably regret it.  I still needed a hair cut, though, and so I made an appointment at Saturn Club because their prices are so reasonable, and asked the hairdresser to make it an aggressive trim but not too short, and then of course what did she do?  She cut all my dang hair off.

Well, not all of it … but there was much more hair on the floor than there was on my head in the end.  So, most of it.  In principle, I am not happy.  In practice, it dries much more quickly now and, I realize, is probably an improvement over having it long and just pulling it back all the time.

Some folks (i.e. Caroline) have been asking for pictures, so there are some of those below.

You can see the side/back pretty well in this one.

The headband is an extremely necessary style element, let me tell you.  Otherwise it is just hair all over the place.

I find I do best with self portraits when I do not look at the camera.

So, not a disaster.  A distraction, for sure, which is probably a good and healthy thing.  I need to get back into the working groove and stay there for the next few weeks, but these are good things of which to remind myself: my applications will get finished, my hair will grow back, TLC will continue to produce quality reality television programming, and all will be relatively well with the world.

A Poor Excuse for Not Doing My Reading

Every once in a while I will get really good and lost in a song … like, completely sidetracked and consumed.  It’s a happy thing, ultimately, loving music like I do, but it can be a challenge when I’ve things to do that are not listening to the song, and things to think about other than how good it is.

The most recent instance occurred last week.  It started with Taylor Swift, or, more specifically, her musical SNL monologue.  I watched it on that Sunday, and oh it is funny and catchy, and it got stuck in my head pretty obstinately, to the point that it was interfering with my ability to pay attention in class.  Something had to be done.  So, I turned to the Pete Yorn/Scarlett Johanson album Break Up, and you can scoff at me if you want (that is what my roommate is), but whatever man, I really like Pete Yorn, and though I am no so into Scarlett Johanson I will admit that she can sing, and there are some catchy tunes on that album, and catchy is what I needed.  “Wear and Tear” and “Blackie’s Dead” in particular were hooky enough to chase the Taylor Swift tune away, though the more I listened the more I became all about the slower and more serious “I Am the Cosmos.”  Here is their verison, in case you are interested:

So, I did a little poking around and learned that it is a cover of a song by Chris Bell, who was very briefly in Big Star and died young and abruptly, as people sometimes do. So, I tracked down a Big Star version, which I liked a lot, and then found the original and, oh man, that is the song I have been lost in lately.

The lyrics are the same in all the versions, obviously, but the delivery is more sincere and strained in Bell’s version … more believable.  “Every night I tell myself, ‘I am the cosmos, I am the wind’,” the song begins, “but that don’t get you back again.”  The song proceeds longingly and rockingly from there.  If you listen to only one song in this blog entry, make it this one:

It’s a slow burner, for sure … a good song to keep in the wood pile for a winter mix, when the world’s a bit more chilly and desolate. Or to listen to, you know, any old time, over and over and over.

(I Continue to Be) A Fool for Fall

So, that tree outside my bedroom window is coming along rather nicely:

The above picture is from about a week ago, I think. There have since been some cold and un-sunny days, resulting in some more redness and orangeness and yellowness:

Yep, things are just autumnal as hell around here.

While I’m on the subject – i.e. posting pictures of trees that are likely of little interest to anyone other than me – I need to show you a few photos I took when I was out at my parents’ house a few weeks back.  They have this dogwood tree that was just out-of-control colorful.

I could barely stand it.

And then there was this curious bush.  I do not know what it is, but it looks like autumn:

Oh, I’ll be sad when the leaves are gone and it’s wintertime.  The 5:00pm darkness is already getting to me, and we’ve a long haul ahead.  Maybe I’ll have some fall photos printed, blow them up real big like, and hope that they’ll sustain me.

And it would be easier to explain this if

I learned an important lesson the difficult way one morning a few weeks ago when it was very rainy out and I had to go to school, and that lesson was that I should not bike to school when it is very rainy until I acquire some seriously waterproof pants. I don’t have class until noon on Wednesdays but I had a 9:00am meeting that I hadn’t allowed myself enough time to get to traveling by any other means – there is, I suppose, another even more important lesson in there somewhere – and so I had to bike to school, and quickly, and got pretty good and soaked.  Even after sitting through that meeting with wet pants and socks and shoes, I thought that I’d stay on campus and just tough it out and dry off over the course of the day.   The GSE computer lab, though, is considerably draftier than the offices on the third floor where I began my day, and when I caught myself day-dreaming about clothes dryers while trying to do get some work done, I decided to go home to change.

I returned to campus sans bicycle and walked home that night, taking almost the same route I ride.  I have crossed the Spring Garden bridge hundreds of times, and that is not an exaggeration, but don’t think I’d ever done so on foot.  And while I know it runs over I-76, I don’t think I’d ever really processed that or thought about what it would look like.

It looks like this:

The weather’s been better this week and I’ve been back on the bike … a little more, as I mentioned in my last post, than usual due to the SEPTA strike.  I’ve been biking to and from Phila U since the buses aren’t running and, while I do get a fair amount of reading done on the bus and have missed those windows of productivity, I’ve mostly been grateful to have occasion to be out riding the Schuylkill trail on a more regular basis.  I’ve been pretty abysmal at finding times for scenic rides away from traffic, so this has been a nice collision of pleasure and purpose.

On Tuesday afternoon it was particularly beautiful, riding home around 2:00 in the afternoon with the sun hitting the trees just so, in wide rays from behind clouds.  At one point I came around a bend and the bright fall colors and sunlight as seen from the other side of a bridge were really especially striking.

This is what it looked like, except even prettier, if you can imagine:

The sun shining on the water bounced back upward and lit the underside of the bridge.

There is kind of a theme to this entry, some words that pop into my head sometimes (and I realize this is a thing I write or say a lot; this is how my brain works, serving things up in fragments) that one can find at the end of a certain David Berman poem, which goes:

I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together…

To quote any more would be to ruin it for you (go read it), and anyway my point is just that I am glad to have encountered some sights in the course of my day-to-day of late that have lifted me out of my head and reminded me of the world outside, reminded me that I can still see new things in this city and enjoy familiar sights in a new light.  And it’s a lot easier to explain this / because I have some pictures to show you. : )

So, here’s to breaking patterns, getting around in other-than-the-usual ways, and the things one can find in the process.