(March 22 - 25, 2008) K ATTENDS STARTUP WEEKEND IN BOULDER AND THEN SPENDS THREE DAYS WITH GOOD FRIENDS MB AND JB AND THEIR DARLING 8-MONTH OLD DAUGHTER, LB, DURING WHICH K AND JB CRAFT THREE BUDDING MICROBRANDS - JB’S LEIO DESIGNS, K’S DREAMFIELD COLLECTIVE, AND THE UNSPELLABLE CHAIN RESTAURANT K IS POTENTIALLY COFOUNDING AT BURNING MAN.

(March 26, 2008) K DRIVES FROM BOULDER TO LAS VEGAS AND CRASHES FOR THE NIGHT AT THE FOUR QUEENS HOTEL, WHICH WAS A BARGAIN ON ORBITZ. SHE STARES AT LIGHTS, SPENDS $10 OF HER OWN MONEY AND $4 OF FREE BONUS MONEY ON PULLING LEVERS, AND CONSUMES HASHBROWNS AND EGGS WITH A CHEAP MIMOSA FOR BREAKFAST.

(March 27, 2008) K LEARNS HOW RIDICULOUS THE LAX PARKING/PICKUP LAYOUT IS AS SHE RETRIEVES HER FRIEND JK SO HE CAN TIE UP STRINGS IN BAKERSFIELD AND PORTLAND BEFORE MOVING TO BRIGHTON FOR CHEMISTRY PROGRAMS OF BOTH THE PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC VARIETIES.

(March 28, 2008) K AND JK HANG OUT IN BAKERSFIELD, WHICH REMINDS K OF COLORADO SPRINGS + PALM TREES + IN N’ OUT - DR. DOBSON.

(March 29, 2008) K AND JK DRIVE TO ASHLAND, OREGON AND FALL ASLEEP.

(March 30, 2008) K AND JK STOP IN EUGENE FOR BREAKFAST WITH THE DEAR VHS AND CONTINUE ON TO PORTLAND WHERE THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NO SALES TAX AT THE APPLE STORE AND THEN GET DRINKS WITH JK’S OLD HOUSEMATE G? AND HER FRIEND ??

(March 31 - April 1, 2008) JK CURSES AND SELLS POSSESSIONS ON CRAIGSLIST WHILE K TRIES NOT TO INHERIT TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY JUNK, LAUGHS AT THE PET TORTOISE, DOES AN UNEXPECTED BIOFEEDBACK EXPERIMENT AT THE NEIGHBORS’, AND MEETS TIF FOR SUSHI AND SP FOR PIE.

(April 2, 2008) K TAKES THE BUS TO EUGENE TO CONTINUE CONVERSATIONS WITH VHS AND MAKE PASTA AND GLUTEN FREE COOKIE BARS.

(April 3, 2008) JK PICKS K UP FROM EUGENE AND THEY DRIVE TO SAN FRANCISCO TO GIVE A CLOCK TO JK’S FRIEND R? AND HANG OUT WITH KYNTHIA’S FRIEND EG AND MUTUAL FRIEND PJ. PJ PROPOSES A VERY EXCITING PLAN FOR A FUNDRAISING PARTY FOR THE GOLDEN CAFE, AND K FINDS RANDOM SHOES ON THE STREET, WHICH GIVE HER A BLISTER.

(April 4 - 7, 2008) JK AND K CONTINUE TO LA WHERE THEY MEET UP WITH SATI, LUCIFER, TEZ, THOR, ATHENA, AND DR DAVE & CO TO PARTAKE IN AN OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED HIGH-QUALITY SALAD BAR, A RANGE OF FINE COCKTAILS IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS, AND OTHER GENERALLY DEBAUCHEROUS ACTS CULMINATING IN A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADYBUG AND CONCLUDING WITH DEAD BATTERIES AFTER DIM SUM AND AN AFTERNOON AT THE SPEAKEASY WITH ARES. PARTIAL SCHOLARSHIPS WERE AWARDED AND K ASSUMED THE ROLE OF KITCHEN MANAGER FOR THIS YEAR’S GOLDEN CAFE. FM’S DRAMATIC DEPARTURE LEAVES MANY STUNNED. K BUYS JK’S CAR ALL OFFICIAL-LIKE BEFORE LEAVING HIM TO HIS FINAL UK-BOUND PREPARATIONS.

(April 8 - 10, 2008) K HEADS TO SAN DIEGO TO SIT ON THE BEACH WITH ERIK AND HIS LOVELY NEW FRIEND L?, COLLAPSE ON A BEANBAG PILLOW FOR SEVERAL HOURS, AND DELIGHT IN THE DISCOVERY THAT K AND ERIK SEEM TO HAVE BROKEN THROUGH A RECENTLY CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONAL DIVIDE, WHICH COULD LEAD TO EXCITING COLLABORATIONS IN THE NEAR TO MID-TERM.

(April 11 - 12, 2008) K EATS BISCUITS AND GRAVY AT THE BIG KITCHEN ON HER WAY OUT OF TOWN AND THINKS OF CALLING /_\ TO MAKE AN ATLAS SHRUGGED REFERENCE. SHE FINALLY TURNS THE NOSE OF THE CAR EASTWARD AND DRIVES, WITH A FEW NAP STOPS, TO COLORADO SPRINGS, WHERE SHE HANGS OUT WITH HER DAD, LEARNS OF A POTENTIAL NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, AND WONDERS IF SHE SHOULD COME BACK TO CO FOR HER BIRTHDAY.

(April 13, 2008) K FINALLY DRIVES BACK TO BLOOMINGTON, WHERE SHE ATONES WITH MVP’S CATS AND DISCOVERS THAT THE BATHTUB IS BEING REPLACED, WHICH IS EXCITING BUT RESULTS IN A DIVERSIONARY VISIT TO JN’S, WHOM SHE IS VERY HAPPY TO SEE NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF THE CHANCE TO SHOWER.

(April 14, 2008 - present) K SETTLES BACK INTO BLOOMINGTON, CLAMORS TO CATCH UP ON WORK FOR IMI, FIGURES OUT HOW TO HANG OUT WITH JN AND RR WITHOUT LIVING AT RR’S, BEFRIENDS AFOREMENTIONED CATS, DOES NOT GO TO PITTSBURGH AFTER ALL, WORRIES THAT ONE OF THE CATS HAS RUN AWAY BUT THEN HAS HER WORRIES RESOLVED, AND THINKS ABOUT HOW TO REALIZE THE PLANS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN SET IN MOTION. SHE PROCRASTINATES TOO MUCH WITH REGARD TO REGISTERING THE CAR AND ATTENDING TO THE WEEDS IN MVP’S YARD, AND OTHERWISE DELIGHTS IN THE SPRING WEATHER.

here i am in boulder, colorado, and you might start to get the suspicion that i only blog when i’m at startup weekends anymore. fair enough. there does indeed seem to be a trend developing. a commentary to my proximity to wireless access in the past few months, perhaps.

anyway, the boulder startup weekend is off and chugging along and it’s mixing things up a bit by not requiring the group to pick one idea, but instead breaking up into as many groups as can successfully recruit support for themselves. it’s like walking around a little startup factory, and i’ve decided to pimp myself out as a consultant rather than join any one group, and so far that’s lots of fun.

i got in late last night because i drove out from bloomington without really sleeping first, so i had to stop a few more times than i anticipated when i planned my very time-crunched driving schedule, a schedule which was further complicated by the fact that my car was in the shop for a day longer than i expected, so… pant, pant, pant…

now here i am.
and back into the flow i go.

i am hereby moving my camera into my purse even though it takes up too much room, because keeping it in my backpack clearly doesn’t do enough to ensure that i have it when i want it.

i got back last night from a little trip to palm beach, FL, where my mother is living now and where she was just officially ordained as a unitarian universalist minister after many years of preparation and hard work. the ceremony was a big success, and it was nice to see and hear so many people telling my mom how cool she is, because they are right. :)

congratulations, reverend momma. i am proud of you.

[insert touching photograph here]

it was fun to see both of my parents - my dad flew down for the weekend and i realized that i hadn’t seen him in nearly two years! - and i am going to colorado and then florida again during the holidays, so there will be more time to catch up, which is good.

i also enjoyed seeing the ocean, and floating in it for a little while yesterday morning before we ate lunch and headed to the airport to send me back west. i have been to the pacific ocean a couple of times this year but i swear that the water in florida is warmer and bluer in november than the water in southern california even under the august sun, and the shells on the beach push some buttons that giant seaweed creatures still don’t quite reach, as much as i love them and as much as i learn to appreciate the beauty of rugged, rocky pacific views.

[insert super blue ocean shot here, followed by fun close-up of the broken shell section of the beach where i made little mosaics for a while]

the autumn weather in portland has made me hesitant to make too many rain jokes, lest i reinforce false stereotypes or tempt bad weather sprites to teach me to be careful what i ask for, but last night i flew in to heavy fog and drizzling rain, which continues today, so perhaps winter is starting to stake its claim on the PNW. flying into PDX at night is kind of a ripoff because you can’t see any of the mountains, which are absolutely stunning from the air. i had a window seat on both flights this time, too, and it was fun to fly over cities at night and try to guess where we were. it’s actually quite hard. i started wondering whether, as we enter the age of satellite photography on every desktop, a new dimension of urban planning will emerge to play with how we look from above.

so now i’m back, WAY behind on nanowrimo, and confronting the task of gathering and/or redistributing my portland material footprint before i head out for a while. i am both glad to be here and glad to be in motion. the west coast has set some deep hooks in me over the past eight months, and now i begin the task of determining which lines i want to sever and which i want to continue to play out, no matter which ocean i swim in next.

tonight lauren and tif celebrate their november birthdays and some time in the next day or so victor returns from his bowling and supercomputing convention, at which point he may or may not have energy for portland adventures that will most likely involve neither. and sharon and i are inventing a tofurky dance. and chakra wants me to make a pie. and there may be another boat? and i might be hijacking jonathan’s car?

hello, friday. another cup of coffee, anyone?

this week i learned that when i got home from burning man, i wasn’t really fully here. sure, i was in my apartment and sleeping in my bed. yes, i unloaded the truck and cooked with what edible options remained. yeah, i saw my friends and did my laundry and embarked upon a gin-weaning regimen with jonathan, and indeed i even began the employment quest in earnest, with no trip looming on the horizon to distract me.

but my mind was churning and calling out for california, where several new friends and two very special old ones were going about their business, and all i really wanted to do was mindmeld with them and careen about drunk on life in the last rays of the summer sun. this became particularly clear last friday when i realized that i was going to be in san diego this week with victor and erik whether my body deigned to actually travel there or not, so i’d best just shut up and get myself all in one place and enjoy the ride.

lemme tell ya, i’m a smart one sometimes, because i had an amazing week romping up and down california, and now that i am back? game on. all systems go. i got three new employment leads today alone. i had a lovely morning in eugene hanging out in a coffeeshop and time traveling to the beat of my shuffle on the bus ride home. i spent the evening out with good friends who i am so glad to be getting to know even better. i am resolved to make sunday dinner a part of my life again. and i really do love this town.

so cheers.

and check out my pics if ya wanna.

last year i made a pledge to redouble my efforts to travel to black rock city this year for burning man.

i made it.

i returned home last thursday night, and the intervening days have been spent unloading a large truck, rinsing playa dust from my skin and hair and clothing and lungs, and alternately bubbling over with stories and collapsing from exhaustion.

i have new friends, a new job for a week out of the year, and a new town to call home. there is so much to say about black rock city and so little of it makes sense out of context, so for now i offer some photos to get things started. my own camera ran out of batteries early and i didn’t get many good shots, but burners are thankfully well represented within the flickr community, so i offer you a few of my favorites:

The Monkey Tree —

Life in a whiteout –

The Double Rainbow and the Temple of Forgiveness —

The Double Rainbow Entire —

The Eclipse –

The Big Rig Jig –

So chew on those a bit, and if you’re still hungry, head over to this description by Lucifer, my boss at the Golden Cafe.

i’ll say more soon and evermore, i am sure. in the meantime, stay happy, and i hope to see you next year in black rock city.

i’ve never been very good at picking a favorite anything, and i’m kind of annoying if you ask me to do so because i will probably give a somewhat lengthy speech like: “well, toDay i think it would be fun to watch the hudsucker proxy, listen to the shins and go bowling. while eating pringles. but last week i totally wanted to watch ET and go to the park. so i Really think it’s more about… sorry. yeah. i’ll take whatever’s on special. thanks.”

but then there is aged dutch goat’s milk gouda, and i think i’m ready to go out on a limb and say that it is my favorite cheese. ever. and yes, i would marry it.

the first time i tried this cheese was a few years ago in some schmancy wine and cheese shop in concord, ma. i was there on a business trip and the other woman i was traveling with and i were exhausted and decided to go buy some cheese and a baguette and a bottle of wine and call it dinner in the hotel room. i think we got some other kinds of cheese, too, but honestly i don’t remember any of the next week because all i wanted to do was eat that gouda all day. work schmork.

it’s funny because this was the same trip wherein i discovered that i have a fondness for tempranillo wine, which is one of the most common spanish reds, so this post sounds a bit big for its epicurean britches now, don’t it?

but to return to the cheese, i came home gaga over it and unable to find any in indiana for a long time, until david rousted some up in indy for the decadent garden party almost a year later, and it was still good, but not quite as good. then sahara mart offered yet another reason to become my favorite bloomingtonian grocer by carrying some for a few weeks. i must have been the only person who bought it, though. barbarians. ;)

anyway it’s not all that hard to find these days, possibly because it’s getting hipper, and i have since located several samples that were all lovely, though usually quite expensive. at whole foods, for example? they have one that is aMazing but it costs like $18/lb. and i’m sorry, but i make it a rule to only donate a kidney to subsidize dairy purchases once every five years.

yesterday though? i found some at trader joe’s for $8/lb. and the past few days have been happy, which is what led to this post. i think my conviction is even more solidified because this dairy sensitivity thing i mentioned in the biscuits and gravy post? it’s quite real, but both hard cheeses and goat’s milk cheeses don’t aggravate it much, so it looks like the thing to do is just pinch pennies and cherish only such cheeses that truly deserve to be cherished. which is how it should be anyway, really. and this shiznit’s at the top of the list.

that was educational, eh? :)

and the first reason it might be fun to live in amsterdam, you ask?
why, the tulips, of course!
i like tulips.
and if you don’t believe that, look here.
there are even two pictures that are named “i like tulips”, so i don’t know what else you thought i meant…

the project today was to begin to tackle the beast of the question of what i’m doing with myself for the rest of the summer. i haven’t talked much here about the lunchmaking business idea, but i did a one week trial run of making lunches for some folks in the office, and i learned a few good things:

1. i love the idea of getting paid to cook: spending my time figuring out stuff to make and then sharing it with people is fun and rewarding.
2. transportation and scalability are major factors in lunch delivery, and the number of customers i would need to actually profit from the endeavor is higher than i originally estimated.
3. there are a number of travel opportunities in the next few months that are relatively high priorities for me right now, and it would be difficult to both devote myself fully to making lunches and be free to take off as needed to take advantage of said opportunities.

the repercussions of these lessons have been stewing this past week as i hung out with my mom and enjoyed the holiday, and i realized today that i have pretty much decided that, while i may continue to test ways to make food to sell while i’m in town, it is not my first priority for the summer, and if that’s the case, i either need to find another job or just embrace a month or so of continued debt and turn my energies to more important matters.

after exploring some part-time job options and looking at a calendar and playing sudoku with the potential pieces of my schedule (to steal victor’s amusing metaphor), i have tentatively decided to opt for the latter plan.

in other words, this weekend i’m going to try out the idea that i dive fully into travel and my own unpaid work for the next few months, using up my welch allyn cushion, making money where i can with food and whatever else presents itself as i go, possibly accruing a bit more debt, and letting the bits and pieces in the stewpot of my brain marinate a little longer before turning the heat down in order to divert more energy to the pursuit of income.

this might be an unwise decision, but when i’m honest with all the parts of myself that i can’t really sum up here, it feels very much otherwise, so i’m enjoying the chance to pencil in the first few pieces and see how the view opens up as i camp at crater lake this weekend.

here is the skeleton i have sketched out in my thinking today:

july 6 - 8: crater lake - car camping and hiking with friendly meetup folks
july 11: fly to pittsburgh - crash the edge, stay with reed, bum a ride to wv
july 12 - 15: masontown, wv - all good
july 20?: harry potter book party/wake for the unknown victim
july 21 - 22: san francisco - wordcamp
(allow the norcal contingent to compete for my company so as to save travel and enjoy good times? transport to truckee on the 30th?)
july 30 - aug 15: lake tahoe - backpacking the rim trail with christie
(fly to indy from sfo?)
aug 17 - 19: bloomington, in - sugar hill
(fly to sfo from indy, and either portland from sfo or san diego from sjc?)
if portland {
aug 25: portland - sue and michael get married!!
(fly from portland to vegas or san diego?)
}
else aug 20 - 26: san diego
aug 27 - sep 2: black rock city, nv - burning man
(fly ___ to indy? play with the bardzells?)
sep 8: bloomington, in - the 11th annual decadent garden party
(fly from indy to ___, ___ to portland)
sep 10 - oct 2?: breathe. make money. take a sailing class. keep up aikido.
oct 26 - 28: las vegas, nv - vegoose
nov 11 - dec 2?: palm beach gardens, fl - mom’s ordination. holidays. breathe. make money. help mom build up her online presence.
dec 2? - jan 1: coastal oregon? - NYE 2007
2008: portland, take two? new zealand? the ocean? italy? the summer festival circuit?

all those question marks on next year should imply that all those things are still considered very much up in the air, but their ghosts are staking out claims to some of my attention. turning question marks into periods is the point of all that comes before.

one step at a time.

comments? advice? warnings? interest in tagging along?

i took very few pictures at bonnaroo.

sorry.

my camera was running low on batteries, they didn’t want them inside centeroo (where the musics was) anyway, and i was focused on other matters, so…

here’s the view from our tent when i woke up friday morning:

those are just a handful of the homes of the 80,000+ people who descend upon the otherwise deserted tennessee farm for three days of chaos and music.

and here’s me, after walking around all day friday, and acquiring a new piece of headwear to protect me from the sun. because no one wants to put on as much sunscreen as would be required to actually prevent blistering. so i decided to enlist material support. by sunday? i was wearing long sleeves. place was like a desert. heat and dust and tons of people higher than kites and in desperate need of hydration. fun times.

here’s my short list of highlights from the weekend:

• meeting our underage friendly neighbors from connecticut, one of whom used “phatty” at least ten times a sentence, as a general descriptor of the awesomeness of the universe entire.
• being able to loan an extra tent to the people a few cars down from us who were missing their poles. good karma from hour one.
• seeing richard thompson and feeling time stop and texting jeff when vincent black lightning was playing.
• john paul jones came out and played mandolin with gillian welch and david rawlings. it was an awesome moment. but honestly? she was super cool all on her own.
• renee taught me to play some card game with gold involved, and i could do it!
• regina spektor and damien rice both kept me wrapped around their adorable, beautiful, charming, subtle, sweet, nuanced fingers, even though some would say i should have gone to hear ziggy marley and ben harper. i don’t regret it.
• sting on a big screen with 50,000 screaming onlookers is indeed impressive.
• the flaming lips are a joy to behold. and dance to. with no restraint. and bonnaroo is brilliant because there are so few places on this earth where one can walk from the flaming lips to gov’t mule to sasha and john digweed all within the space of a night and then strike back to your tent with the sun coming up and the world feeling like a glorious marvel.
• at one point some jokester walked by us muttering under his breath “plutonium!! weapons-grade!! depleted uranium!!” as a commentary on the black market. it was amusering.
• bobby weir was there, and a bunch of hippies who came only for him. it was awesome. he played come together. and we did.
• many of the not hippies were there for widespread panic, about whom i knew very little. they put on a damn fine show. consider me schooled by the younguns. ;)
• i made two new friends of rather different stripes, but i hope to remain in touch with them both.
• as we were packing the car, we learned that our neighbors had never heard of hair. the musical i mean. we played it. they laughed. it was the campiest scene Ever. and awesome.
• on the way out, we groundscored a baby pool for jarien, a couple buckets, a sleeping mat, a decent pair of boots, a bunch of stuff i did not even process but renee found room for somehow, and, i kid you not, a four-foot tall red stuffed animal with a cardboard sign around it’s neck that proclaims: “Feed the Dragon!”

so quite the weekend, eh?
:)

on with the show!

today i got some news that is very likely going to sound a lot more out of the blue to you than it does to me, but that’s just because the situation has been so weird and wishy washy that it hasn’t seemed worth writing about it.

now here it is, though, and no sense beating around the bush: my job is ending in two weeks.

as my supervisor was kind enough to state very clearly, this decision is not at all a reflection upon my performance over the last few months. it just turns out that shifting the design culture of a large company from the inside out requires quite a bit of a political maneuvering, we hit a few snags that were a bit larger than anticipated at this stage of the game, and, well, i’m the temporary contractor who wasn’t really planning to stay with the company that long anyway, so it makes sense that i’m the first (and hopefully only) casualty of budgeting rearrangements.

honestly, a lot of me feels relieved. i first heard that this might be possible about a month ago, but it was always at some unknown future point and it was never clear how real the threat was and it was impossible to really do anything with the news other than use it as ulcer fuel or ignore it, and so i did my darndest to do the latter as much as possible. but it still took its toll, as there is only so much patience i can muster for showing up at work and not really knowing if there is anything to do other than watch meetings be postponed and stretch simple tasks out over several days to fill the time. especially when i can think of lots of other things i want to be doing.

which leads well into the next reason i am not devastated by the development.

one of the major questions that i hoped to answer by taking this job was that of whether i am in a headspace for longterm full-time employment right now, and the past three months have provided quite a bit of useful data that has begun to suggest an answer quite a bit earlier than i anticipated. i have learned that there is a lot to be excited about in the professional design world right now, and i enjoy being a part of the conversation about where things are going. at the same time, however, i have learned that i still basically think of myself as a student, that i have Lots of stuff i want to work on for my own reasons that have nothing to do with any company that i know of at the moment, that the travel bug has not left my system, and that i am increasingly convinced of the merits of finding ways to work for myself.

with all that crystallizing in my head, i was honestly starting to get a bit antsy, and once it became clear that it was possible the job might not last the full 9 months after all? well, let’s just say i had no difficulty coming up with ideas of what i might like to do.

the anxiety, as usual, will hinge on money. the last month of my travels and the first month of my move and transition to employment put me once again in the red, and i had been employing a strategic approach to paying that back over time because i thought that my income was assured for a while. so it’s frustrating to have to deal with that. but not unmanageable. and i am hereby stamped as genius for adhering to my policy of sinking money into camping gear instead of furniture in an attempt to limit the number of things i will have to store, sell, or give away before i am able to uproot myself again.

on that note, look at what else i did today!

those wheels are tiffanie’s bike, which she lent me, and which i will now perhaps return. the thing that should jump out at you about the fact that you see those wheels is not really the bike, however, it is the fact that my new tent? it’s like one big window. this is nice in circumstances such as the present where it is pitched inside where there is little crosswind and you are still inside a sleeping bag for some reason. it is also nice, however, when it is inside your backpack weighing securely under 5 lbs. even with the rainfly and footprint, or when it is pitched outside in the summer and you want to separate yourself from bugs but not from breeze or scenery. and summer is the season which is about to be upon us. and did i mention that i might have more free time?

so yeah. options abound. and it is somewhat symbolic to me that i decided (and it was a somewhat spontaneous decision as well) to go ahead and buy the tent today of all days, with timing such that i was actually in the process of erecting the last major component of my bare bones self-sufficiency kit right when my phone rang with news to suggest that i might not want to buy the few pieces of furniture that i had decided to splurge for after all. i might have hesitated tomorrow, and i have many days ahead of me to decide if i want to trade it in for the other tent i was considering that is a fair bit cheaper. but today? today i just kept clicking the poles into place. i felt the metal bend, watched the fabric billow and tighten, listened to the silence on the phone and the buzz of the world out the window, and said: “oh. ok. how much time do i have?”

so here come an interesting two weeks, folks. on we go.

i had the idea the other day of several people pitching in and buying or renting property in a range of locations, and then sharing them all.
so everyone can broaden their sense of home without needing to afford/support (you pick your politics) a model wherein a person has more than one residence.
and someone is always there to water the plants.
:)

who’s in?