Prickly Pear Love

Yesterday sucked. The bus came too early and we missed it and I was quite late to work (I hate being late). Then I actually had a lot of work to do, on top of which were two past-last minute projects shoved off on me from out of nowhere. I was grumpy and dizzy and afraid I was getting sick and had a tired that clung to me despite coffee, despite running around, despite tea. Super grumps + exhaustion = sad Kai.

Then I came home and there was Lady, and suddenly things weren't that bad.

This weekend was our Bull Moose Day - we went to see a ballet interpretation of Carmina Burana (hilarious), and then I sneakily took Lady to a tea room and we had tea and scones on a delightful porch while the servers tried to hurry us because they had to set up for their VD dinner.

Then Sunday we spent most of the day oot and aboot doing errands. We didn't go hiking, because after our friends decided not to go this weekend, we just looked at each other and went "well, we kind of have a lot to do today anyway" and went for a long walk instead. Still have a lot to do, unfortunately: parents will be here late-late Wednesday and our apartment is a bit... strewn.

Anyway, hope you had a good Bull Moose Day or, failing that, had a good drink and got to read about others absolutely horrible VD experiences.

(no subject)

Day 22 - How have you changed in the past 2 years

Two years ago I was just beginning to take photos. I think it was the journey out to Seattle which really set me off, realizing that even snapping as "many" (I thought 20+ was "many" at the time) as I did along the way, out of the moving car window with my tiny little 2002 point & shoot, that it wasn't enough to truly document that epic of a journey. FL to Seattle, man. SE to NW, all the way across the entire fucking United States. Swamp to marsh to lowlands to dense greenness to hills to farm lands and corn and corn and more corn (oh, IL), to the picturesque WI, to flatlands and farmlands once more, to green as far as the eye can see, to sudden badlands, to empty, barren expanses, to the Rockies, to the Fucking Rockies, to Real mountains, to evergreens, to desert, to more Real mountains and a volcano you can see on the other side of the state, to rain and clouds and delicious coffee. I hadn't captured it sufficiently.

So I stole Lady's slightly-better p&s, and I failed again in capturing Snowpocalypse 2008 (the Snowpocalypse which spawned the successive Snowpocalypses of 2009 and 2010, btw).

But it wasn't until June and kylecassidy's the Hive project that I caved and bought a dSLR.

So two years ago, I didn't own a dSLR. But I knew I wanted to do something with photos, and I was taking them and realizing something was fundamentally flawed with the contraption I was using.

Two years ago I also received my first (and only) grad school rejection letter. It was a low blow, but not as low as the criticism I'd received beforehand from my undergrad Greek prof. The worst part - he was right. I didn't want grad school enough to pursue that path - I just didn't know what else to do with myself. Don't get me wrong, I still desperately love Classics, languages, and everything associated therewith. But I also couldn't kid myself into thinking I'd enjoy being a professor.

Two years ago I was also horribly depressed. It was my first real winter and I had just discovered that coffee was giving me panic attacks and all I could drink was tea and for all my life I'd loathed tea. If I forgot and had coffee, I would be forced to shake and huddle on the floor crying, convinced I was about to die. Sometimes even without coffee, for absolutely no discernible reason at all. I was having constant work-induced nightmares, and had just found out about grandpa's new, inoperable, brain tumor. Lady couldn't find a job, money was tight, and neither of us had friends in the area.

But at the same time, spring was happening. And in Seattle, spring happens in earnest and just keeps happening. There were snowdrops and tulips and daffodils, so many daffodils. I was actually writing (editing!) and the sun was peaking out on occasion and I was truly learning to enjoy that.

I learned a lot from that experience. My two years in Seattle were both wonderful, but painful. I realized I could be awesome on my own if I just put in the effort, realized that sometimes change is a necessary catalyst, realized that sometimes our dreams can be left unrealized. I learned that sometimes to make friends (especially in "cold" Seattle), you had to make the initiative, and keep making it. I learned that rain is not an excuse.

So in short, today vs two years ago? I'm more grateful, if possible. I'm happier. I'm luckier. I'm trying more and more to live the life I preach - be kind, be sympathetic, don't be that asshole, realize that sometimes you're someone else's 151st monkey - and realize at the same time that yeah, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's fucking hard. Sometimes it's fucking scary. But it's hard and scary for everyone, if not harder and scarier. And you gotta go, you gotta do and create.

And sometimes you gotta fail.

( Just a few left )