Passion

 Guys! GUYS! Oh man. I'm posting in my journal AGAIN.

Life is really, really, really good right at this moment. I wanted to write it down, to capture it, to keep it forever. It is WARM outside (I don't know where spring went. It snowed here two weeks ago, and now it is 80 outside and muggy and LOVELY) and summer is here. The sliding glass door is open. I'm cooking a lovely marinated steak, and an artichoke. I'm drinking beer. I got a birthday card from Jim's parents that is signed, "Love, Mom and Dad." My friend Anne sent me a hilarious knitted whip (she's such a Slytherin, deep down) for my birthday. My best friend Ann sent me a box of incredibly good dark chocolate (does it GET any better than a box of dark chocolate??). I am marrying the most wonderful, sweetest, cleverest, offbeat man I have ever met.

Okay. Maybe the beer is getting to me a bit. I'm definitely feeling sappy. But life feels so, so good right now. Everything, in this moment, is just right.

 Good things are coming up! I'm starting to get excited.

I finally booked plane tickets to go see my mom in May. My original plan was to call her, like, Thursday while she was at work (the Thursday before Mother's Day - and my birthday) and ask her what her Mother's Day plans were. When she said "nothing" or "just hanging out" I was gonna reply, "Aw, that's too bad. I wish we could go out to dinner or something." And then she'd come home and I'd be IN THE KITCHEN and we'd go out to dinner and it would be totally awesome.

You know, planning surprises is REALLY HARD. So she knows about the visit now, but I'm going for a nice long five-day visit, and we both have the opportunity to make sure we get all those days off work, so we'll have plenty of time to spend hanging out together. I haven't seen her in a year and half, which is absurd and totally unacceptable, so I'm really really looking forward to this visit.

There's a bunch of other stuff on the horizon for this summer. First off is a casual get-together with House Cup friends in June - people from around Michigan and some of the connecting states are going to meet up for an afternoon potluck type thing. I've met most of the people who are coming, so it will be a nice chance to chat with some friends I don't see often.

July gets really crazy. Or, the third weekend in July is crazy. The Michigan Brewer's Guild Beer Festival is on the 22nd and 23rd, and I've been looking forward to it since LAST July. I've been to the festival the last two years, and it's just awesome. It's such a fun gathering, and there are hundreds of different beers to taste. The atmosphere is fabulous, and the company is even better.  This year, sadly, Jim's sister is getting married that Saturday, so we won't be able to spend the whole day there, but I do plan on taking most of that Friday off work so we can spend all of Friday at the festival.

August looks clear at the moment, except for maybe a fiber festival on the other side of the state...

The first weekend of September is going to be the highlight of the summer this year. I've been talked into attending DragonCon in Atlanta. There are several House Cuppers (Slytherins, actually) who live there, and my House Cup friend from San Francisco is going to be meeting up with them down there too, so it was really inevitable that they'd talk me into going. Plus, James Marsters, Felicia Day, and Anne McCaffrey will be there. It's a huge convention for nerds. It's going to be four days of epic drunken House Cup nerdery.

In the meantime, the sun is slowly returning to these parts. It's making me cheerier and giving me more and more energy. I feel less like sitting in the dark in my apartment and hiding from the world, and more like MAKING things and DOING things and SEEING people and GOING places. I need to start channeling all that energy somewhere (and I miss living in California, where I remember this energy being so much more powerful...).

This evening I started working on a costume for our Friday night gaming group. One of our members just had a baby (and was our DM, and is not going to be attending for the forseeable future), so we've switched to a new campaign for the next several weeks. I'm playing a witch, the kind who lives in a secluded hut and has branches in her hair and is a little crazy but makes the most effective potions you've ever tasted.  So I scored some free glass test tubes from work and spent this evening brewing up the perfect potion. I settled on water, butter, xanthan gum, and food coloring.  Then I had to figure out how to cap the tubes, which was a bit more of a challenge, but wax-soaked cut-up-sweater-squares glued and then tied on seem to have done the trick. None of them are leaking yet!

Now I just need a stuffed weasel (on its way overnight from amazon.com!) and a black skirt I can shred and tie branches into...

 Life! Summer!

Both are good.

We went to the Michigan Brewer's Guild Summer Beer Festival last weekend. We went last year and had an absolute blast. This year the weather was... well, pretty terrible, actually - it was so humid and the ground was so wet it was like festivaling in a bog instead of a park - but it was at least sunny, and the beer was incredible. We tasted somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 beers in less than 5 hours, got blissfully, happpily drunk, and were able to enjoy many of our samples sitting on a dock dangling our feet in the wonderfully, refreshingly cold river.  I got sunburned. I learned that I love, love, love dark beers. The darker, the better. I will be taking this knowledge to the adorable little liquor store I discovered about twenty yards from our apartment, which has apparently been there the entire time we've lived here.  I'm observant like that.

Yesterday we went swimming at Jim's parent's house again. We've been over there once or twice a week all summer, and it's been heaven. It's still not quite enough for me to be getting into the shape I want to be in, which is frustrating, but I'm not quite motivated yet to do anything about that.  Anyway, Jim's grandma was in town for the week, so it was nice to see her one last time before she heads home to Florida. I think we'll be taking her up on her offer to go visit her once it starts snowing here.

This weekend is CBfest, something like the sixth annual.  It's basically a giant party for the members of the WoW guild I'm still in. I went last year despite not even being in the guild, and it was a blast.  They're great people, some of whom drive in from some pretty far-flung states.  It'll be a great time.

Work is amazing. Not much to say, but it's amazing. I love this job. SCIENCE!

Haven't been knitting a whole lot. I'm almost through a sock, but that's about it.  Dunno where all my knitting mojo went!  I think it's still back in 2009.  Oh well; I can't really blame it. Hopefully it will catch up with me as fall approaches.  Fall, after all, means fiber festivals!  And fiber festivals mean road trips to New England!

 Look! An entry!

I got a new job.  It is an awesome new job.  I will no longer be formatting, copying and pasting, and writing diplomatically phrased emails to idiots.

I will be a lab manager for a research lab at the University of Michigan. I'll be in charge of some undergrads who will be in charge of some transgenic mouse colonies. I'll be keeping the lab running smoothly and safely. I'll be doing my own research project. :-)  I start at the end of June.

Lately I've been made kind of painfully aware of how not anonymous the internet is, so I'm trying to be as diplomatic about this announcement as possible. There are things about my current job I do like, and I will miss my coworkers. (Most of them.)

But really, I am absolutely thrilled about this new job. It is an AMAZING opportunity, and I cannot wait to get back into science and research. I MISS doing research. I miss being on the cutting edge. Just being around the cutting edge. SEEING the cutting edge.  I miss the university environment and the culture of academic thought. I miss being challenged every day.  I miss being able to get up and walk around as part of my job, and not being stuck sitting at a computer all day every day (I've gained weight since I moved to Michigan. Not a ton, but 10 pounds feels like a ton on my frame).

This does push back plans to move to California. /cry

Yesterday I went to Jim's parents' house to go swimming. The weather was beautiful for the first time in over a week (damn you, you stupid rain. stupid midwest cold rainy summer of annoyingness!), and I desperately needed the exercise.  Of course, they ended up inviting me to stay for dinner, so I got to hang out with his parents and his brother and sister. It was a fun evening. I threw a frisbee for their three dogs for about an hour (one of the golden retrievers will take flying leaps into the pool, over and over and over again. It's hilarious. We finally had to put the frisbee away because she was wheezing and still trying to leap into the pool), and then did laps for a while. I definitely feel less sluggish today.

It occurred to me that these people will very likely be my in-laws someday. I don't know why this didn't occur to me, y'know, a year ago when we were talking about rings. Maybe it's because yesterday was actually the first time I've been over there without Jim (other than when we lived there, obviously, though actually Jim was almost always around even then).  It's a very interesting thought, like some part of the nebulous future has kind of gelled up a little bit.  It's comforting, but disconcerting at the same time, in kind of the same way deciding on a graduate school disconcerted me. It's... you know what, this is probably worthy of its own entry.

Jim is taking me to Mackinac Island for the weekend (or so he says. he won't even be home until tomorrow morning, so we'll see how the schedule turns out in reality).  I've been to Mackinac the town, but never the island, which is apparently a second small town that's very old-timey. There are no cars on the island. I'm not sure why this is a big deal, but every time someone mentions Mackinac Island, they mention that there are no cars.  I think it has to do with the Michigan "cars are god" mentality; lack of cars is a huge thing.  Anyway, said town/island are also famous for fudge, and I think I can make Jim take me on a horse-drawn carriage ride, and this weekend is the start of some sort of Lilac Festival, so it should be a good time.  

In gaming news, I've been playing Oblivion and WoW.  Oblivion is interesting in that it's taken a lot of the good parts of Morrowind, added in a few new good things, and then a few new ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE things.  The inventory and stats interface is just freakin' awful.  They also removed the teleportation spells, but they made it so you can instantly travel to certain key areas on the map you've been to before. They turned lockpicking and speechcraft into minigames, both of which are just awful in implementation, but I do like the concepts in theory.  I also seem to just completely suck at playing, so almost every mob I've encountered so far (other than like, rats) has been really hard for me to kill. I'm clearly doing something wrong.  But anyway. It hasn't fully pulled me in yet, but, as with Morrowind, I find myself wanting to play it just so I can level alchemy (why yes, I do need to get back into bench science) and spellcasting. Sigh.

In WoW I've been playing pretty casually, working on some random old-world goals (like getting every cooking recipe in the game, including that annoying purple one that takes you through an extremely painful quest line and reputation grind), leveling a few alts, and actually reading quest text. The next expansion is going to drastically change the game world, and I wanted to see the Alliance side of things before it goes away.  I also stumbled across a guild made entirely for low-level dwarven hunters, so I created one and joined up and it's been a lot of fun so far (and it's made me want to play my level 80 hunter more). They have a large event planned for tonight, so it should be interesting to see what they came up with for 300 level 19 hunters to do.

Other than that... Not much is going on. I made a small silk shawl/scarf thing last month, but haven't knit much else. I've been reading a little bit, but nothing really notable.  Jim is gone a lot, and I miss him.  Claire is going insane with the weather being warmer and the porch door being open. She's started clawing the screen. It's far enough gone now I'm almost not bothering to stop her anymore; we're going to have to replace it either way. Sigh. That cat...
She actually woke me up the other night trying to chew on some dangly earrings I'd fallen asleep wearing. That's right. She was trying to chew on them while they were IN MY EARS.

It's overcast again. It better not rain in Mackinac this weekend.

I've been meaning to write a Decade in Review post since the end of December, but, well, y'know. I'm lazy and all.

So. Some quick summaries, with vague highlights as they stand out in my memory. I'd look things up, but all my paper journals (dating back to freakin' 1992) are still in Reno in my parents' shed in the backyard. So yeah, all from (terrible) memory.

2000
The end of my freshman year of high school. Finally got over my first love. Had the whole David not-dating saga. Slapped a boy for the first time. Got flowers for my 15th birthday from Michael--the first time a boy ever gave me flowers. Taught archery to other girls at summer camp. Joined the yearbook staff. Met and fell in love with George.

2001
Sophomore/junior year of high school. Got braces. Turned sweet 16 and had a Renaissance-themed birthday. Went to France with my mother (best two weeks ever). Became Assistant Editor of the yearbook and really did the job of editor-in-chief. Had alcohol without parental supervision for the first time--didn't like it.

2002
Junior/senior year of high school. George at one point said something nice to me and I got teary-eyed. To cover, I told him I was a sentimental sap and cried at everything, including stupid commercials. Confused, he looked at me and said, "Canned peaches, on sale now." I laughed and pretended that yes, this was the sort of thing I would cry at.
George graduated and I spent the entire ceremony sobbing. Afterward we met up and he said he had a gift for me. I was trying to hide how upset I was and was presenting a smiling face, until he pulled out a can of peaches and smacked it down on the concrete wall next to us. "Look, a can of peaches!" I burst into tears.
I became editor-in-chief of the yearbook. Mom took me to visit colleges. I fell in love with Santa Cruz. I remember very little else of this period.

2003
Senior year of high school. Got my first kiss in January. Cried when I got my acceptance letter to UCSC, which I opened in the yearbook room, where I lived. Braces off. Convinced George to come home from college to take me to prom. Graduated. Sobbed to be leaving.
Spent the entire summer working 60-hour weeks at the video store. Made barely $2k.
Kissed George.
Failed to learn to surf.
Started college.
Met Jamie. World changed forever. Lost innocence.

2004
End of first year of college. Was... 19, in so many ways. So immature, so full of passion, so very confused about life.
Got first lab job. Fell in love with organic chemistry. Changed life plan from marine biology to biochemistry.
Took a class with Harry Noller. Fell further in love with molecules and biochemistry.
Spent Christmas with Nanny.

2005
Nanny died. World changed forever.
Nearly failed physics, a subject which to this day still does not make sense in my head.
Mom got pregnant. I had surgery to see if I had endometriosis and if my uterus was actually functional.
TAed for a high school program at UCSC.
Worst summer I've ever had.
Got back together with Jamie. Ran in the First Rain Naked Run (so glad I did that-definitely a Life Experience). Applied to graduate schools.

2006
Got into Yale. FREAKED OUT. Sister born. Broke up with Jamie for NO GOOD REASON.
Had best spring quarter in the history of the world--climbed, drank local beer, learned photography, spoke French, casually flirted with amazingly hot French guy but never got anywhere. Turned 21.
Graduated from college a full year early. Bought a car and left everything I loved behind. Moved to Connecticut.
Had completely disastrous attempt at normal relationship.
Started graduate school. Hated it. Loved it. Could not make up mind.
Saw New York for the first time. Fell horribly in love with it.
Developed crush on guy both my close girl friends dated before I could make up my mind about whether I wanted to or not.
Learned to cook a turkey.
Learned to knit.

2007
Continued to hate and love graduate school. Got very, very depressed.
Joined genetics lab. Still not sure why.
Enjoyed a six-month-long secret relationship that ultimately went nowhere but was a great experience anyway.
Was convinced to qualify early. This went badly.
Started a real relationship.
Bought a cat.

2008
Decided to drop out of Yale. Spent six months actually working up the courage to do this. Was convinced to go on medication for depression--was horrified and relieved when it actually worked.
Went off medication as soon as humanly possible. Was relieved to not relapse into depression.
Left Connecticut, breaking ties. The day I left Connecticut is etched very painfully into my memory. I remember the temperature, the colors, the sounds... Mike, Eliz, Kristy, Emily, Andrew, I miss you all so much.
Drove back across country. Burst into tears when the Rockies came into view. Mountains!
Was taken in by amazing aunt and uncle. Got job in local university bookstore. Wondered where the hell life had gone wrong and what the hell I was doing with myself.
Got depressed.
Fell in love with Jim.

2009
Fell further in love with Jim. Uncle diagnosed with all kinds of cancer. Moved to Michigan for lack of anywhere else to go. Got job as medical editor.
Wondered where the hell life had gone wrong and what the hell I was doing with myself.
Slowly got life back on track in my head.
Applied to graduate schools.
Managed not to destroy relationship, which still baffles (and delights!) me.
Knit 18 feet of garter stitch and learned to knit lace.
Started to feel like an adult.

Goals for 2010?
Get into UCSF. Knit more lace. Knit for other people. Stop being so selfish.
Hit quarter-century mark. Have giant party.
Move to California. Buy house. Be deliriously happy.
Start graduate school over again. Be incredibly stressed out. Drink coffee. Love every second.
Convince Jim we should get second cat.

This has been one of those mornings when I keep making ridiculous promises to myself. "Okay, today I'm going to finish that second infant sweater. And then I'm going to start writing in my livejournal, and I'm gonna get back to writing every day. And then I'm going to finish knitting my mom's shawl, and Kayla's blanket, and then make lots of baby things for Kayla too. And then I'm going to write some scientific articles and submit them all over. And I'm going to call my dad and get him to tell me about his life so I can start writing his biography finally. And then..."
Augh.

The one I keep coming back to is the urge to get back to writing in my journal every day. I miss doing that, and I miss being able to look back at any given day after five years and being able to see what I was going through and how I dealt with it. I've been terrible lately at actually putting ME into the journal; it's all been straight facts and very dry recordings of happenings. I guess it keeps getting harder and harder to be honest with a public journal. I don't know why that is... but I feel like, as I get older, I keep being pushed further and further into my shell and I want to share less and less with the world in general. I hate that tendency. I'm traditionally an open and emotional person, and I interact with the world through feelings and perceptions. It's just the last two or three years that have changed me to interact more with cold logic and a hard external shell. Damn you, Connecticut. Damn you for hardening me.

The funny thing is that someone this week accused me of "changing" over the last year--as if this were a terrible thing. I find this hysterical, because the further I get away from Yale, the more I feel like myself. Since the moment I dropped out, I've been getting stronger, more confident, happier, more introspective... and I've had more and more energy, willpower, and drive. I used to be such a ridiculously passionate person. I miss that. It was like I had a constant fire blazing inside me, driving me to do all sorts of amazing things, and it went out when I moved to Connecticut. I should have known immediately that I'd made the wrong choice... but without that inner motivation, it was hard to change my decision and leave.
Anyway, I've hashed all this out over and over again. No need for it right now.

I'm not really sure what the point of this entry is (am I ever?). Maybe I'm just recognizing another small step in the recovery of my personality. That little inner motivating voice is coming back, and it wants me to get out and DO things, and MAKE things, and be creative. It's a good thing.
Now I just have to remember how to focus it....

I made it to Michigan, as most of you have probably already learned/guessed. It's a strange thing to have moved... east... to the cold barren wasteland of Michigan... but I'm no long in a long-distance relationship, and that's TOTALLY awesome. Living with Jim is very very easy.

I had an interview on Thursday but won't hear back about it until week after next. If anything exciting happens I'll definitely update here... but otherwise still no job.

Jim is going to start a D&D campaign with our mutual friends up here, so it turns out I got here just in time to make a character and jump in. Our first adventure is tomorrow and I'm really excited. I learned a few things from the six or eight weeks playing in Utah, so hopefully I've given my character a slightly stronger start for this campaign.
Jim also has a group of friends that decided to start up a campaign D&D-like game called Earthdawn, so at the last second we flipped through the handbook and created characters (mine is a 17" tall creature with wings, whose basic class description can be simplified to "warrior". I cannot WAIT to roleplay a 17" tall warrior) and went to the first adventure last night. There are NINE people in the party, which is just freaking absurd, but the people are all awesome, and the DM seems like a good DM so far. I laughed so hard the whole evening. They seem like my kind of people.

So at least up here it seems like there is a pretty decent social network, which is nice.

Not much else is new. I'm really, really, really, really, really sick of moving. I hate having things in boxes, scattered across different states. I hate not knowing how long I'm going to be in a place. I hate not knowing the streets. Hopefully I can be here for a while.

I miss Claire.

It's been a long week. I've worked at the ridiculous bookstore twice, and had a really annoying interview with a human resources company (oh lucky me, I will be allowed to be part of a stuffing assembly line for four days after christmas). Wednesday morning I DESPERATELY needed coffee, so of course after purchasing said coffee at 6:45 am, I took a corner too fast and spilled it all over my feet under the gas pedal. LOVELY. I went back to the gas station and the lady behind the counter gave me a refill for free after I told her I'd spilled the first one, which was super awesome and very friendly of her. But still. It was not a good way to start out the day.

On the bright side... the car has smelled vaguely like cat pee for two months, and now it smells like gas station coffee. Which is, you know, one step up. Maybe I should buy some really expensive kona coffee and spill THAT in there.

ANYWAY.

There is a new boy in my life. I feel some guilt about this (quite a lot, in fact). It is, however, largely overshadowed by my absurd happiness. I had forgotten what it was like to be happy. It's... fantastic.

In other other news... I finally got my healer druid to 80. It was painful. I miss my hunter and will be leveling her as quickly as possible once my hatred of all things warcrafty wears off (I leveled the druid way too quickly and under too much pressure. the whole game annoys me right now). But in the meantime, I can at least get back into raiding with the druid.

Also, I started playing D&D with my cousin and some of her friends. Only two of us have ever played before (my cousin and the DM), but none of us has ever played 4th edition. And the DM has never DMed. So far we are all learning the basics of how the game works, but I think we will get better quickly. I've purchased dice and a D&D player's handbook (OMG I'm a real nerd now!) and am LOVING finally being able to play. There were guys who played when I was in high school, but they never let me join them, and I've been dying to get into a group ever since.

ANYway. aNYway. anyWAY... Sorry. High school inside joke.

I need a real job. And to move to California. And then life will be absolutely perfect.

I made it to Utah on Thursday. Claire and I are each in one piece, which is nice. The car also seems to be functioning well, for which I am deeply and eternally grateful to the powers that be.

I know I've mentioned this on here before, but in case you don't know, I have about a zillion cousins. My mom's side of the family is Mormon, so visiting Utah is basically like dropping myself into the center of a continuously ongoing family reunion. I am one of those extremely lucky people that actually LIKES her extended family (since they're all basically just totally awesome), so the fact that I am staying with my aunt and uncle for a couple of days is one of great happiness. Claire and I have a room to ourselves, and there has been much visiting of cousins and cousins' babies and whatnot. I always forget just how amazing it is to see family again. They're so bright and funny and loving and supportive... you can't help but come away feeling better about yourself. Even if your cousin's husband does beat you soundly at Settlers of Catan.

They're also trying to convince me to stay here, and I have to say, it's pretty tempting. There's a whole floor upstairs that's a mini-apartment that Claire and I could live in while I look for a job, and then I could find my own place. There's a built-in support network here, it's only a day's drive from Reno, there are several universities in the area creating lots of jobs and I'd have a ton of help getting back on my feet... I know, I know, I KNOW, it's not California. It is, in fact, a step backwards from Nevada. But there isn't really room for me at my parents' house in Reno (I believe I will be sleeping either on a pullout couch in the library or on a rollaway bed in the office... plus there is a dog-door that I'm terrified Claire will escape out of and be eaten by coyotes), and Reno's a smaller area, so getting a job feels less likely.... And going straight to California right now is just out of the question. It's the state hit hardest by the economic slump, and I simply can't afford to live there while I'm trying to find a job. I KNOW, I should have thought about all this before I left Connecticut. But I was terrified that if I stayed too long I'd never escape--and it was hard enough as it was. My friends did not make it easy on me. I seem to be plagued by an overabundance of people who want me around! What a terrible blessing!
On a side note, I've started having nightmares (mostly just sad, not scary) about the people I left behind in CT. Aaaauuugggghhhhh. The problem with choosing something is that you always have a thing you didn't choose!

Anyway. What was I talking about? I got distracted.

I'm heading to Reno tomorrow. Nine more hours in the car with Sad Cat (turns out Claire isn't Angry Cat in the car... she just walks around and cries. It's more depressing than anything else. after about half an hour she'll sit down on her pillow and sleep, but that first half hour or so is hard on the Cat Owner emotions).... Oh well. Wednesday night she actually used the litterbox while we were driving down the freeway, so I think she's finally gotten the hang of being a car cat. Poor thing.

Okay. I'm out of rambling for now. I'm sleepy and confused and all that good stuff. I miss Connecticut (by which I mean I miss the people I left behind, because I certainly don't miss the state), but I really think this was the right decision, and I feel like I have more options open to me now. I guess we'll find out.

The catbeast and I are largely moved. She gave me SEVERAL scares during the actual "moval of the catness" phase. She escaped from the car when I went back to get her litter (damn my stupidity and my lack of a cat carrier and my laziness in putting her harness on her...), and after about five minutes of me standing next to the open car not having ANY idea which direction she'd gone, I saw a flash of orange and chased her through the neighbor's yard and snatched her up neatly when she tried to double back. Mwa ha ha. I'm learning her little escape tricks. ...slowly, apparently.

We managed to make the two-block drive without incident. Weeeee!

Then I got her into the new apartment and occupied myself pouring new litter into her pan (for, like, eighteen seconds!)... and then realized the bathroom window to the roof was open, and I couldn't find her ANYWHERE. Turns out she was in the stairwell hiding, but it took a good ten minutes of me hanging my head out onto the roof clicking for her before she finally trotted up behind me. AUGH. WHY DO I HAVE TO LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE IS INSANE THIS IS WHY I'M NEVER HAVING KIDS.

Anyway. New apartment rocks utterly. New roommates rock utterly. They have awesome taste in music. Only problem so far is that it's on the third floor and third floor apartments are very very hot in the summer.
It'll be so nice in the winter though!