Packing

Part of me agonizes about moving home. It feels like I'm just giving up on being independent. I realize how much money I can save, how much more Zoe snuggles I'll be able to get, and how much commuting I will cut out... but it's so sad to end the Wedgwood Era. Writing the Craigslist add for the apartment made me realize how great this place was, and how much I'm going to miss it and it's "Easy walking distance to grocery store, bank, post office, library, restaurants, and yoga studio!"

BL's decision to leave made everything so much more real. It suddenly didn't make sense to have an apartment empty all but maybe 6-10 nights a month, at even the cheapest rent in town. Plus, who would pick up the mail? Would we turn off the heat only to have to come home to a freezing apartment and inefficiently warm up the apartment for a day? I didn't want to not be KN's roommate, but coming home to a completely empty apartment week after week suddenly seemed hard to fathom.

Moving back in with the Parents is not really ideal in my "growing up" theory, but ideal in practice. The kitchen will be stocked (by me and my parents, I'm not getting nor expecting a free lunch) with things that I can cook--in particular, fresh items (milk, cheese, vegetables) that I could not eat in the day that I would be home for. The laundry machines are in the house, and while I don't expect Mommy to do my laundry, I can throw in a load and leave... coming back a few hours later to change it--something impossible when you're using a shared laundry facility in an apartment complex. I'll be 15 minutes from the airport, and not so far from friends that I won't be able to see them when I come home. Plus, I'll have ideal storage space for my raspberry wine as it rests.

So I've packed up my books and my blue glass into liquor store boxes and have agreed to share a u-haul with BL for the big stuff (Daddy and his SUV just won't tote the full sized bed like the pickup could). So now I just get to wait for a few days before Load #1 heads south. Piece by piece, I'll dismantle the room I've grown to love, and probably have to paint it back to the icky white it started out. I'll move to the room I'd left behind, and probably have to reshuffle quite a bit to make it function like I need it to: As a big welcome home hug.

Boredom Hits Critical Mass

Well, doing nothing is fabulous until you hit a point where it ceases to be so any more. Then it becomes stifling, confining, depressing, immobilizing and just plain annoying. You spend a whole entire day sitting at your computer, commenting on your photos, fiddling with facebook, youtube, and any blog you can find. Then you look around, realize it's dark out and you haven't A: gotten out of your pajamas or B: left your apartment.

YES.

How long have I been dying to hit this point? I want to see what happens now, once I'm good and bored and needing to figure out what part of my life I want to focus on. Here's what I can come up with with an extremely bored brain--

• Option 1: go finish reading the book I'm working on.
  
• Option 2: pull out the art journal and make a huge arty mess.
  
• Option 3: go clean my room and the kitchen for the people who are coming to look at the apartment tomorrow morning.

Obligations schmobligations... I'm going to put on some loud music, put on some dancing shorts and dance-clean my room and do my dishes. I'm going to get a semblance of organization to gear up for the big move and clean out some of the cobwebs floating around in my head. Then I'll probably collapse on my bed and read for a few more hours before waking up tomorrow and finding a solid purpose.

I've done nothing for a week, with a few minor acheivements... the greatest of which was buying a pair of grown-up pants (technically: a designer pair of grown-up pants that weren't eggregiously expensive but were definitely more than I had initially counted on spending. of course, I think I thought I was going to get nice tailored tweed pants for $30. wrong.) Doing nothing to the point of absolute boredom was what I wanted to do, but now tis time to enjoy being unemployed. Really enjoy it.

Re-evaluating, and #96

So, I guess I was counting on life getting in the way of getting things done when I put in the last few goals on my 101 list. Either that or I was copping out of thinking of four more goals. I've been really bad about getting around to re-evaluating the list, which I was supposed to do in June, but here's my changes:

• 4. Bike to work every day for a month. No longer an option, so it's going to become "Go on a 30+ mile bike ride."
• 6. Take a tap class once a week for three months. I don't see myself doing that, but taking a single tap class will be feasible, and will likely make me want to take more.
• 7. Do a stretch routine every night for a month. and 9. Do an ab workout every night for a month. and 13. Floss 1x a day for a month straight. These are simply not working because i seem to not like to do things on a daily basis (surprise). I'm going to aim for 3x a week, and make the flossing for two months straight because that's a habit that I need to really get into.
• 46. Read Popular Science to see if I'd ever want to write for them. I need to scope out more magazines than just the one, so I'm changing it to "Read three science magazines to understand what science writing is all about, especially medical science."
• 48. Read Bonnie's New Yorker's fiction piece at least 6 times. Well, I never did that and now Bonnie doesn't get the New Yorker, and I'm not going to be living with her anymore... so now it's going to be "Read non-fiction or travel writing in a magazine I could submit to and write an article in the same style." since I need the writing practice anyways.
• 60. Complete a Project 365. Well, the camera met the ocean and I was so far behind already at that point that 2008 is no going to work out, so I'm adding in a little extra goal to this, to entice me to start before Jan 1, 2009: "OR a photo-a-city for BER."

I'm also going to relax a bit on the goals themselves as they reach completion... There have been many that I really haven't kept track of as I was actually doing them. That and I went to Mexico and never really learned any spanish, but didn't need to know any. So completed goals are now up to 15/101. I'm behind by 9 for being at 8 months in (at a 3/month completion average rate required). Luckily, I've got a lot of free time to work on some of the easier-to-complete goals, being unemployed and all.

Lastly,there is number 96... What to put in for that one? I think the new goal, much facilitated by my new job and ever-increasing competition with some friends (who know who they are... ;)) will be to "Increase my states visited to 40/50." Should be fun, relatively manageable, while getting some stories along the way.

A Grand Mis-Adventure, Part III

And cue the start of day four… Bail Out Day. The sun was barely up when Vinh and I opened our tent flap to the waves washing ashore. A little oatmeal and hot cocoa warmed us up and off we went, finally figuring it out that starting BEFORE low tide meant that we had double the amount of time to get around headlands. Walking down the beach was an interesting experience after the day before: no elevation changes, but the ground under our feet was constantly changing. Soft sand, hard packed sand, small pebbles, medium pebbles, large round stones, small boulders, large boulders, logs… anything you could think of was included in this 2 mile stretch of beach. It still took longer than we’d have planned to hike, although it was much easier than the day before.

Luckily for us, as we approached Ozette River Vinh’s phone picked up a miraculous signal at the estuary… as sunlight filtered through some sparsely planed trees and the river bubbled along in a wide, shallow ford. I called my Dad and arranged for a drastic change to our rendez-vous plans. Originally, they were to have met us on Saturday at Rialto beach (about 25 miles south of where we were at the time). Now, Vinh and I were going to hike out to the Lake Ozette campground on Friday and snag a site so that Mom & Dad could meet us there. It was a moment where you could almost hear the harps playing and bells ringing.

As we forded the river we’d be afraid would be running far too high after all the rain and came around some extremely beautiful headlands, we finally had some time to look around without worry. The tide pools were chock full of interesting critters and Vinh spent way too much time ogling the mussels and daydreaming about a steaming pot of them as we walked on them (there was no where else to put your foot!). Around one bend, we came to a very large, very shiny rock… or so I thought until the smell caught up to us. Nope, it was in fact some sort of whale or porpoise washed up on the beach. Amazing to see… from a relative distance. Finally we arrived at the biggest let down so far—Cape Alava, the intended campsite for day 2. The tide stretched out before us, across a long stretch of shallow kelp beds. The tide pools must have been wonderful, but the stench drove us inland as fast as we could go. We’d seen so much that was drastically more beautiful that we didn’t need to stay much longer than the time it took to appreciate the barking sea lions and a brief snack break.

Three miles up the boardwalk trail to Lake Ozette and we were back to civilization and FLUSH TOILETS. Campsite snagged, we waited for good old Mom and Dad and cold beer. An evening of stories ensued, followed the next day by a day hike back out the boardwalk to the coast, and then south along the coast to Sand Point, where the beach became sandy and nice once again. The amount of people went from the maybe 25 people we’d seen in passing the other 3½ days to hundreds enjoying the day hike and picnicking opportunities of this stretch. It was a nice little jaunt, and enough of a hike (9miles) to make me allow myself to indeed count this as a 5 day backpacking trip (plus, I didn’t shampoo my hair until I hit home, and that is in fact the definition of “roughing it” for me). Another night dinner with the parents (mmm chili!) and off to bed.

Sunday was not so wonderful as the previous two days. Waking up to rain pouring down, our previously dry tents were hastily stuffed into the car along with everything else, and we drove back up to Neah Bay. Parting ways, the long drive back loomed ahead. Vinh quickly came down with motion sickness and after letting him fall asleep in the front seat I was able to drive the windy roads in the absolute downpour. Thank god for my CD collection. He woke up right before the second round of windy roads at Lake Crescent, and seemed to be getting better as we pulled into Port Angeles. Five minutes after going into a café though, he was back in the car trying not to puke. After I’d eaten something, we sped off to the drugstore for something to help him. Back on the road, I was sure we’d be home in no time until we hit Squim. An accident had closed 101, and we sat there, engine off, for almost 3 hours. Then of course, the ferry traffic was backed up, and all in all, we got back to Seattle 10 hours after leaving the campground.

All in all though, the saddest, craziest, most wonderful part of all of it is… I’d do it again.

A Grand Mis-Adventure, Part II

Day three, Thursday, started with one last burst of rainshowers on the tent fly. Vinh and I waited out the rain before climbing out of the tent and packing up our things. Once we said goodbye to Nathanael we were off to further adventures. Our plan was to try to pick up some ground, making it most of the way down the coast in that one day, at least 10 miles. The beaches were amazing that morning, and only a light sprinkling of dewy mist fell.

Once we rounded the small headland that had socked us in the night before, we were faced with the first of a few "rope assists" to get over some unroundable headlands. I started to get a touch of vertigo as we walked along narrow trails and clung to ropes to help pull ourselves up over the still-soaked cliffs. Some of the outlooks were ridiculously spectacular, but I could neither take a picture nor linger for very long since we needed to go a fairly good distance before we could stop worrying about the tide that would start coming back in about an hour. Up and down we went, twice. Then around another very rocky headland where my hands really started to ache from clinging to scratchy ropes and sharp rocks. The boulders were very large and somewhat slippery, adding to how tired my legs were starting to get.

Then came the third and final rope assist. Up wasn't too bad, although I was getting more exhausted and experiencing more vertigo. I slipped a couple times while going up and on the first rope going down. Then came the second rope to the beach... The trail that you used the rope to descend had basically been washed out and stripped bare by the people who had gone down the trail ahead of us. It was nothing more than a muddy chute, slick as can be, with a fat, scratchy yellow rope to cling to. Vinh went down first. I heard a sound come from him which I understood to mean I could start. Turns out, he'd fallen down the second half of the trail, scratching his leg and rope burning his entire arm as he caught himself.

I started down the trail slowly, digging my boots in and allowing myself to slide down slowly. At a few points I became physically and emotionally stuck. I was so scared that I froze, unable to move a hand or a foot for fear of falling the 30 or so feet to the rocky beach below. Eventually, right around where Vinh had slipped himself, he convinced me to take off my pack and slide it down to him. It could have had to do with the fact that I was having a panic attack while clinging to the rope... Taking the pack off was incredibly difficult as my weight shifted back and forth and I could feel my feet sliding out from under me at times. Finally, I made it down the last stretch and just let all of it out--the vertigo, the fear, the shaky mud-coated legs, the scratched, beaten and mud-caked hands, all of it came pouring down my cheeks. But we weren't done yet.

Next, we had to go around yet another headland, bouldering for over 0.7 miles. Doesn't sound like a lot, but we did it over the course of maybe, a half an hour, moving as fast as I could at that point. Vinh could have done it much faster, as he's a wiz on the rocks, but I was still so shaky and the rocks so large and slippery that it took me a long time. Plus, we'd run out of fresh water (our overnight campsite had not had access to a stream) and I was getting dehydrated. When we'd gotten around that headland and one more smaller trek, we were on a long sandy beach... and I just demanded a break.

We came across a stream, maybe 3 miles from where we'd started, 3 hours after we'd started, with almost no breaks in between as we raced the tide. Vinh pumped water and we mixed some gatoraide in my water bladder to rehydrate me. Laying on this wonderful, sandy beach, looking back towards the headlands we'd just crossed (Point of Arches still in view in the distance), I suggested just staying. We'd have problems if we tried to rush to the other headlands since I couldn't go fast enough without a break. There was no way to make it the distance we needed to to be able to get past the reserved-only campsites, and I didn't want to end up pushing our luck on some not-quite low tides.

We ended up camped on the beach, our tent facing north west with a spectacular view of the creek flowing into the ocean and the sea stacks in the distance. Vinh built another fire without a firestarter this time, then relocated it to a better spot (how he did this still baffles me), and then watched as the beach flies died in massacre quantities as they flew too close to the roaring flames. We made pesto pasta with fried salami and flatbread cooked in the salami grease (trust me, I needed the nutrients at that point) and slept extremely well until waking up at the crack of dawn the next day... determined to get cell phone signal, call my dad and bail out at Cape Alava.

A Grand Mis-Adventure, Part I

Upon the wonderful suggestion of my father, Backpacker Man, I convinced one of my friends to join me on a 5 day adventure into the wilds of the Washington coastline. Turns out taking advice from someone who has hiked all 2600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in the course of 6 months is not necessarily the best idea…

Our adventure was to take us over the 25 or so miles from Shi Shi beach up north to Rialto beach near La Push. Monday night I began to have reservations about the wisdom of our excursion considering the forecast: rain and gale force winds for the next two days. My compatriots convinced me to go through as planned; Vinh and Nathanael, I’m not sure whether to thank you or knock you out.

Tuesday, Vinh and I headed out for Neah Bay. After stopping in Port Angeles for some tasty drive through at a chrome and neon diner called Frugals and getting laughed at by the ranger as we picked up our permit, we drove the long, winding road along the northern coast of the peninsula. Stopping in Neah Bay to pick up our Makah recreation pass, we walked out along a long, sketchy dock and purchased a 6 pound salmon straight from the fishermen. Wrapped in a simple trash bag, Sammy was to be the first course in a gourmet backpacking extravaganza of food!

The rain started to plip plop on the windshield as we headed out to the trailhead, and it picked up as we walked along the mud-filled trail. Vinh struggled to keep his sneakers clean and semi-dry while I trudged straight on through the puddles and muck (hooray for gore-tex lined boots!). We hit the beach after two miles, and continued down for about another mile, looking for anything that could function as a semi-protected campsite. We found a little ramp with a rope assist leading up off the beach, and ignored the “no camping” sign we found there. Vinh tried in vain to really get a fire going so we could cook Sammy and kept an eye out for Nathanael until we were both so cold and wet we couldn’t stand it anymore. He handily tied our extra food up high enough to act as a decent bear wire, including what we were sure was to be a very sadly spoiled fish the next morning. A dry tent kept our tummies happy enough for the night.

Wednesday morning, we woke to dry skies, walked down and met Nathanael on Shi Shi beach, and decided to cook the salmon, damn the tides. Let me tell you, those moments of dryness and the taste of that fish (which had not been eaten by raccoons nor spoiled overnight!) were spectacular. As soon as we started eating though, the rain came pouring down. As we walked along Shi Shi, we created a couple of “Olympic Beach Events” including a hammer throw with a rope tied to a rock that we found, buoy soccer, buoy chucking, and seagull chasing.

Then we came to the Point of Arches, which was amazingly gorgeous in the rain. Nathanael went around the corner a bit and assured Vinh and I that it was passable, even though the tide was definitely higher than we’d expected or wanted it to be. Well, it was passable, if you didn’t mind getting up to your waist in water. I was terrified to be honest, after being warned constantly not to end up getting caught by the tide. At one point I lost my footing and slipped. Vinh grabbed the back of my pack to help keep me above water, but my waist belt and the bottom of my pack definitely went under, along with my butt. My camera was sadly tucked into one of the waist-belt pockets at the time and was the absolute last thing on my mind. About 100 more yards after the fall and we were out of the water and on the beach, wet up to our waists in salt water, and wet down from our heads by the torrential rain.

Eventually we determined that there was no way to round the next headland and that we would have to wait out the tide if we wanted to leave the cove we found ourselves in. After getting up above the tide line and determining that there was no overland trail for the headland blocking us, we set up the footprint of our tent as a lean-to shelter. Water was coming off of it in sheets as we all three huddled underneath not sure how we were going to withstand 6-7 hours of waiting. As the rain appeared to taper off, Nathanael made a fateful bet with Vinh that Vinh could not start a fire in the sodden conditions. Somehow, out of sheer dumb luck or fantastic skill, Vinh got a fire going with nothing but toilet paper, a wet fire starter, matches and some soggy twigs. I managed to keep the fire stoked and with two boys collecting the driest stuff they could find, we had a roaring blaze going.

We decided to spend the night on our secluded cove. No one else could reach us due to the tide and we rightly decided that trying to make it to Cape Alava, four or five miles away, at 8-9pm was not a good idea. Our clothes dried out by the fire and we had the tents up in time to keep us and our stuff relatively dry when the squalls started up again. phad thai (with baked tofu, green beans, and sautéed spinach) was our dinner along with my Nalgene full of Charles Shaw chardonnay. The only thing we were lacking at this point was marshmallows! Then to wake up on our little cove, with the sea stacks on either side, was spectacular. Since I was dry, warm, and excited by our lovely beach, I decided not to bail out on the trip altogether. Our little fire saved the trip.

Free at Last

Now that everyone knows, I can blog about my recent job-related adventures... perhaps too late for anyone to care. I have spent the last month in the process of interviewing for and accepting a position at the Bureau of Education & Research (otherwise known as BER). I will be traveling the US (and some parts of Canada), flying or driving to a different city 6 days a week, facilitating seminars for educational professionals, and generally testing every fiber of my being.

It was an intense, four interview process, culminating in an interview with the owner of the company who also just happens to be my roommate's boyfriend's father... but following that interview they offered the job, and I was ready to sign. It was a combination of many things that led to such an abrupt change, dropping away from science so whole-heartedly... Partly some of my co-workers, partly my own disinterest for what I was actually doing on a daily basis, partly the fact that I cannot see myself continuing on either in a lab tech position or in a graduate school program in the field, and partly because I was falling deeper and deeper into a hole that I was becoming defined by.

At some point I became defined as a nerd, an outcast, a dork, and what-have-you, and ever since I've been in the out-group. I found myself just like other people who strive to be original and a-typical but fall into simply defining themselves by a separate set of guidelines. I closed myself off to people because they weren't part of my "antisocial nature," that I insisted was inherent to my personality. Turns out, I'm pretty damn social and love to have attention and in-depth conversations one-on-one with people. I'm not necessarily as inclined to be social in the same ways as other friends are, but I have my own way that does not require definition or judgment. I may be a bit quieter, less a leader of the pack, or slightly off-beat when it comes to interests, but that makes me more interesting rather than less.

So this new job will help me turn the corner, leave the out-group behind, and try a high school-esque situation over again. I don't have to be the "popular girl" but I don't have to be an outcast. I just have to be me, put myself out there for who I am, and just let things roll instead of trying to control every step of the process.

My co-workers were shocked, as they should have been. I didn't let anyone know I was going to quit until I dropped the bomb to my boss yesterday afternoon. Some are madder than others but altogether I think most realize that I am doing what's best for me. I think some are impressed with my courage to step off the moving train, and I'll admit, I'm a little bit impressed too.