Two Weeks To Go!

I guess this is a post to commemorate my survival of four months and two days of doing essentially nothing with my life, waiting for that moving to London thing to happen. So now if I ever wonder, "What was I doing in the final few weeks before the most monumental move of my life?", I will have an answer. And, knowing myself, I will ask this question someday.

And, because I need a break from thinking about serious things, here's some fluff:

1. I finally watched the final episode of the second series of Sherlock yesterday, then paced around my living room and explained to my dog why it was so good. More than any other episode, this one addressed the relationship between Sherlock and Moriarty, and I found myself absolute transfixed by the action on the computer screen. This is rare - normally when I'm watching TV on the computer, I jump around a lot from tab to tab, listening to everything, but actually seeing only about 75% of any given episode. In this case, though, Sherlock is just so intensely serious - and Moriarty so intensely insane - that I don't really have any choice but to watch. Maybe this clip will show you what I mean:

(spoilers ahead)

I also have to say that I really, really love Moriarty and would be really, really upset if he is actually dead. I know, I know, he's evil, but he's also fascinatingly eccentric, and my, my does he have style. Seriously, what other villain would break into the Tower of London not to steal the crown jewels but to wear them?

 I feel like this is turning into a Moriarty fan page. I'm going to stop.

2. I want to make pesto and Thai iced tea - not necessarily for simultaneous consumption. In other food news, I thought my dreaming mind invented peanut butter cookie cake, but it turns out that lots of people have already thought of it. I think I may never be a great innovator in the kitchen.

3. Today I stood on the precipice of creating a tumblr account, but when I looked down into the chasm of potentially wasted time, I decided not to jump.

Update: Never mind. I jumped. oskdagrunu.tumblr.com. Whatever. I can restrain myself. Maybe I won't even use it at all. Yeah, right. I know myself and addictions to websites, and it's bad.

4. Today I dressed up like a hipster (meaning I wore normal clothes but felt glaringly weird in this small, fashion-backward town) and shot footage of things that make me think of home. This way, when I'm far away, I'll hopefully have something to stave off the homesickness, or possibly something to make me more homesick. I don't really know how this will turn out.

5. I really should get back to researching possible thesis topics and European nonprofits. These things could be important to me someday, although I have to admit that I'd much rather waste time on this tumblr thing. At the moment I'm asking myself whether I have any self-control at all. Probably not.

Move On Already!

My bed was like a taco in the sense that I was sleeping on nothing but a brown sheet folded in half like a taco shell. The problem with the taco was that, unlike actual tacos, it wasn't warm inside. Too much air conditioning. My body, I suppose was of normal temperature, but try as I might to radiate heat, I couldn't warm that sheet up. I missed my duvet like you wouldn't believe. Any bit of heat I managed to squeeze out my duvet would capture and hold prisoner for the rest of the night. It was a clever one, that duvet, but now I've relegated it to a shelf in my closet in my parents' house.

My Ann Arbor bedroom used to be a warm and welcoming place. Now it's the blank-walled, bare-bedded, empty-closeted shell of its former self. The rest of the apartment has likewise suffered from the lack of my ridiculous amounts of stuff. It is no longer the place of freshly baked scones...

And comically-named bottles of wine...

And walls covered with possibly too many pictures. 

No, it's not my apartment anymore. It's okay. Really. I haven't (yet) had even one emotional breakdown about this development. I just have to keep telling myself that I don't have to spend the rest of my life in this post-graduation, pre-grad school limbo.

In its infinite wisdom, my sister's college guide magazine says, "life changes. keep up with it." But what about those times when life keeps promising to change but then decides to take forever to get around to it? What about those times when life says, "Sure, you get to go to grad school in London, but you can only earn this privilege by spending four months in purgatory. If you don't lose your mind, you'll have the chance to do something cool. But, knowing you, you'll probably lose your mind."? What about those times?

What about the times when you hang out with your friends and realize that you really may not see some of them ever again?

What about the times when you don't even care that your bathroom counter is covered with makeup residue and hair and wet dust (seriously, gross) because it's not really your bathroom anymore?

What are you supposed to do when in all of your dreams you're on planes and trains, and when you pick up your phone to call your family or a friend, it shatters into tiny pieces?

What about those times?

What are we supposed to do?

My advice: don't emulate me and get all angsty. Teenage-esque angst is never the answer - at least not at the age of 22. But what if I've reverted to the age of 14 in terms of maturity? Because there's a distinct possibility that this has happened, probably because I moved back home after college. I think I need to work on re-growing up.

Hometown Touristing

Sometimes I wonder if my use of the word "hometown" to describe Ann Arbor is a misnomer. I was born here but didn't grow up here; I attended college here but moved back into my parents' house directly following graduation. I suppose this is really an issue of not quite knowing where I live anymore. Is my home where I'm living at the moment? The "permanent address" I list on official forms? The place I'm moving to in about two months? Honestly, I think the answer is none of these - not entirely anyway. This is the summer of self-imposed rootlessness. You see, I could have a place that I fully consider my home, but I'm choosing not to, mainly for fear of becoming too attached to something I have to leave. 

This is getting too sad. 

Regardless, I'm back in Ann Arbor for a few days, and I'm just now realizing how much I missed this place. I missed being surrounded by people my own age; I missed the abundance of coffee shops, the student-oriented restaurants, the campus buildings - practically all of which I can point to and say, "I had a class in there once." The benefit of being back here without any real purpose is that I can finally do all the things I was too busy for while still a student. It's going to be Tourist Day, Part 2. What is Tourist Day? Well, allow me to explain.

A Brief History of the Original Tourist Day: this is a holiday that my friend and I celebrated when we had officially completed all of our college classes. Basically it consisted of walking around, taking pictures of everything even slightly meaningful, eating in a restaurant we both love but never really go to, and trying a new coffee shop. The logic behind it is kind of obvious: we wanted to do the fun things in this town before leaving it forever. Not that we didn't have any fun during four years of college...

As the shirt above may have informed you, Ann Arbor is not entirely real. This doesn't mean that it's a cardboard city they disassemble every night (although I'm convinced that those exist - some towns are just too perfect), it just means that Ann Arbor doesn't have things like bad neighborhoods - at least not that I've seen - and the city's general population tends to be fairly young and well-educated. It's something of an anomaly. And, yes, sometimes I do feel like I spent my college years living in a fantasy world. Not that I'm complaining. 

I must say that a fantasy world appears more fantastical when you are free of all responsibility, and during those first few minutes of Tourist Day sightseeing, Ann Arbor looked ridiculously beautiful.

This is Nickels Arcade. I once heard that there aren't many of these left in the world, although I can't seem to find confirmation on the internet. Oh, internet, why do you fail me just when I need you most? Kidding, kidding. 

Most of Tourist Day consisted of wandering around, since there turned out to be very little actual sightseeing to be done in a city where I had lived for four years. Still, we did hit some tourist sites: the Arcade, the Cube (see below), the graffiti alley (likewise). 

The Cube. It spins. 

The Graffiti Alley

For me, though, the highlight of Tourist Day was, of course, the food. We went to Fritas Batidos, which is one of my favorite Ann Arbor restaurants. My roommates and I call it "The Cuban Place," although it apparently isn't a Cuban restaurant - just Cuban-inspired - and I sometimes call it "That White Place" because it's very white inside. Have a look:

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I have only ever ordered one thing here: the black bean frita with muenster cheese. I don't need to try anything else on the menu because this meal is perfect. It's basically a black bean burger served on a brioche roll with fries on the inside. Yes, the fries are part of the sandwich. And I know that this sounds like a fairly ordinary meal, but just trust me, there's something about it. Something addictive. Something that will keep you awake the night before a trip to Fritas Batidos thinking about it. Sadly, during this trip to Ann Arbor, I don't expect to make a return trip there. I can't afford such luxuries as restaurant food. I guess these are the trials of recent graduate/future grad student life. 

Don't pay too much attention to me. I'm just being melodramatic. 

An Introduction to San Francisco

The first thing I learned in San Francisco is that I'm not very cool. I mean, I'm 22 years old and I still go on vacation with my parents. Even my parents admit that it's a bit pathetic, and at one point in the trip, my mom actually said that I'll never again convince her that I'm young enough to be included in the family vacation. 

Still, I had fun. At least five people mistook me for a teenager. I wore horribly impractical shoes. I became a very "good" photographer of fire escapes. And, most importantly, I decided that someday I will write a series of travel books entitled "Horrible Tourist," and they will tell the story of my life. Seriously, after climbing Telegraph Hill (apparently it's touristically significant) instead of taking pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge like everyone else, I laid down because I was wearing heels and my feet hurt.

Fire Escape Photography - My latest hipstery enthusiasm

But let's start from the beginning.

We checked into the Hotel Monaco, and it instantly won me over by offering an iced-tea-apple-juice blend in the lobby. The seduction (yeah) continued when I discovered the unlimited complimentary wine served for one hour each night. Not to mention that all guests here have the option of cohabitating with a goldfish for the duration of their stay. I named mine Leviathan.

The Room

Leviathan! 

Having checked into the hotel, it was time to remedy the I-have-eaten-mostly-cookies-today situation. We selected the King of Thai for our first night dinner, and, oh, what a dinner it was. I should probably disclose here that I am something of an expert on Pad Thai, having eaten it in essentially every Thai restaurant I have ever visited, and this was some of the best - if not the best - Pad Thai I have ever tasted. The shrimp to vegetable to noodle to spice ratio was perfect. Other selling points: they have authentic Thai beer, you can order comically large, mixing-bowl-sized bowls of soup, and no one judges you if you're not very good at using chopsticks. Of course forks are available too. 

Giant Soup!

After dinner we decided to be boring and go back to our room and sleep. Thus concludes my first night in San Francisco.

To be continued...

The Self-Improvement Impulse

Let's just say the desire to become a better person is on hiatus for the time being. I suspect that summer killed it, or at least severely wounded it. This is not to say that I've abandoned my (sometimes faulty) moral compass, but rather that I haven't been in the mood lately to do Things of Long-Term Importance. No, I would rather spend my time reading The Hunger Games and watching Doctor Who, which, in fact, is exactly what I do. Yes, let's slip into fantasy worlds that bear only the faintest resemblance to my real life. Solid plan. Ignoring reality is, after all, extremely comforting, until I invariably remember that reality is still out there, sort of pressing in on me from all sides. From the feel of it, reality is made of wool: it's thick, it's heavy, it's sometimes a bit stifling, but not entirely uncomfortable. And sometimes it's itchy. Yeah, I took this metaphor too far. True to form.

Then I wonder, "How am I ever going to transition back into being a serious student?" Because, at this point in my recent graduate-ness, the concept actual work is so foreign that it's terrifying. I mean, I spend my time thinking of the best natural fiber to metaphorically represent reality. And the thought of reading something that isn't at least vaguely fantastical... What? Also, why? I know, I know, reading about reality is a component of developing ideas. Whatever that means. I do remember a time when I had ideas, when I read books and my thoughts had a bit more depth than my current standard: "I am so entertained right now" (with crazy eyes - see below).

Yes, I do look quite a bit like him when I'm reading an especially exciting book.  This expression is some combination of "I have never had this much fun reading in my life" and "I strongly advise you not to interrupt me." 

The only relatively productive thing I do is write this blog, and that's something of a joke because I just talk about stuff and have probably no readers. There is possibly a larger purpose in all of this, though. It just hasn't fully manifested itself yet. Or potentially at all. There is a reasonable chance that this has something to do with my future move to London, but for the time being I'm in Michigan, at home, mostly waiting for things to happen, looking at these things from a distance of about two months, thinking about how two months is at once a long time and not a long time, feeling unmotivated, maybe because the future is still a long way off, maybe because it's all very close and very scary.