The Musings of a Wandering Soul

Trees and board games and cake
and knitting and Dark&Stormy's and really really great friends.

The wandering tribes have gathered. In a big house, tucked into the North Carolina woods.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and stayed til Monday. It was a good weekend, very good. It was a bit mellower than years past, but the company was still some of my favorite. Old friends and new. All with something to add to my life.
Evenings of good beer and fire-side conversation. And vilejynx's cake!) Late nights of good liquor and deep wanderings. Early morning chats over coffee and scones and bacon.

It is my people, my tribe, a place to return to. A place where past, present and new come together.

until next year, be well my friends

So Saturday was museum day. I went to the Guggenheim and MoMA with J. Dizzyllama and quixotic_goat came along to the Guggenheim but left early to go to the movies. The main exhibition running in the Rotunda right now is Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance. It was captivating. There were also several smaller exhibitions in the peripheral galleries. The space as well is an exhibition in and of itself.
By the time I got to MoMA I was pretty tired, even after a break for lunch. (Mmmm spinach pizza) So we didn't stay there long. Which is unusual for me. Typically I can easily do two major museums in one day. (I did 9 hours of museums once, now that one hurt.) So we picked two exhibits and then chilled in the sculpture garden. They first exhibit was a look at were prints and illustrated book layouts by Picasso.
We then hit one architecture and one design exhibit.
The architecture exhibit was the work of an 8-week charette by 5 architecture teams exploring 5 different NY waterfront sights and how they can be altered to address future environmental and financial challenges.
Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront

Finally we took in a housewares/furniture design exhibit discussing the idea, held in the early/mi twentieth century, that the museums should be informing the average person's design choices at home. An interesting idea, not sure how I feel about it.
What was Good Design? MoMA's message 1944-1956

By the time we were through I was totally brain fried and really got very little out of the last exhibit and not as much out of the other two as I would have liked.

We then met up with the boys for a walk across the Brooklyn bridge and Turkish food for dinner.

We spent the morning in Central Park. Starting at the Natural History Museum and worked our way south. It was lovely and relaxing. We went in with a map and not really a plan. That seems to be my travel plan these days, but wandering is fun and that was the name of the game this weekend. Then we headed into midtown and visited Rockefeller center, before heading to Grand Central for lunch with J. We visited the Morgan Library, where J works, which has a beautiful atrium connecting the museum and library. It was designed by Renzo Piano and is absolutely gorgeous. I unfortunately couldn't take pictures and didn't have a sketch book. :( (need to get a new one of those) After that we said good-bye to J and went in search of the Highline. ( www.thehighline.org ) It is the old elevated train tracks that have been converted into gardens and a walking path. It is very well done. With many allusions to its origin. We walked the full length from 20th St down to the West Village. Where we wandered around and had dinner at a great mexican place. (Tequila cured salmon ceviche with mango pico de gallo and orange infused salt. omg yumm)

It was a wonderful day topped off by white wine and scrabble with J and dizzylama.

And so it goes...

Things are going pretty smoothly this week. Not much of interest. Finally getting some basics established that I had been putting off. (I hate finding new professionals. Dr,dentist, etc et al) And trying to be better about keeping a regular schedule. I am still sleeping pretty crappy but I hope to get some help for that next week. (having to split your sleep into 2 sessions sucks and wastes time.)

Two weeks ago I headed to LA to catch a ride to Fire Drums in Santa Cruz. (yes yes I know how far the drive is. But I didn't have to rent a car and got free strawberries) Fire Drums is a fire spinning event in the mountains every year. It was my first fire event and will always be a favorite. Some of the best spinners in the world come together for 3 days of workshops and 2 nights of amazing fire. Took 2 fan classes, 2 weapon workshops and a dance for staff class. I also got to play with my birthday present. A HOOP. Yes I am now a hooper girl. OK not really but its fun and a good core workout. I have good hand manipulation skills but am still learner to actually manipulate it with my body. Lots of friends from all over CA and best of all I got to hang out with oceansfire and her girlfriend. They are adorable and I love them both.
Saturday night was very interesting, I took firewalking. Yes on hot coals. It was amazing.

This past Saturday I headed to Silver Spring with quixotic_goat and reedrover to see The Vagabonds . It was a lovely evening of piratical music, belly dancing and Stupid Things With Fire. We timed it so that we reached home just in time to go thud into bed.

So here is how the trip East ended up. It was a fantastic, exciting, grueling epic 3 week adventure. I am so happy we got to see so many friends and family. None of the visits were long enough, they never are it seems. And I am unspeakably grateful to everyone who housed us and the fur beasts, you are all saints. He entire trip reminded me how much I love cities. Somehow there is texture in a city that I can’t capture anywhere else. It was our first time in the Pacific NW, and I am now dying to go back.

San Diego
Leaving LA – 10/18
7 hrs
CA coast & Big Sur – 10/19
1 hr
Monterey – 10/19-20
2 hrs
San Francisco – 10/21-22
11 hrs
Portland – 10/23
3 hrs
Seattle – 10/23-26
12 hrs
Montana – 10/27
23 hrs
Chicago – 10/28-11/2
9 hrs
KC – 11/3-4
4 hrs
St. Louis – 11/4-5
11 hrs
DC – 11/6

I have all the photos up on the Picasa site now. http://picasaweb.google.com/faeriefyre
Captions are sporadic, but I will keep working on them.

All epic journeys involve at least one night spent in the car.

I love old bricks.

Whenever I start a job search I need to be sure to spend a little time, or a lot, doing things that remind me why I love what I do. I spent all of this morning and some of the afternoon wandering around St Louis taking pictures of houses and street lamps and old warehouses and power plants. It was very good and it has been far too long since I have had the uninhibited desire to wander down random alleys and through not quite vacant lots. Of course as I was taking a series of shots of nice row houses in Layfette Park, it occurred to me. How does one prove that they are a trigger happy architecture bum and not casing houses? I should really figure that one out.

Headed onward to DC/NoVA.

More later.

I forgot about autumn. I forgot how much I love it. The crisp wind, the smell and taste of the air. Crunchy leaves under foot.

I found myself walking down Massachusetts St in Lawrence KS. Feeding the meter and wandering back to good food with old friends. After a lovely afternoon of shopping in a college town.

Then we headed off to consolidate cars and find the last piercing studio in my five city adventure. It was a good day.

Tomorrow? Off to St Louis.

night night

I started a post saturday but never finished.
"I am feeling very dysphoric right now.
Edgy, almost, though not quite, paranoid.
Feeling full of potential, but not motivated."

So that was my weekend. I hate feeling like that. I didn't get done nearly what I "needed" to. And that feeling that I should have accomplished more usually means that I start reducing my sleep in the hopes of catching up. You can see where this is going. No where good. Last night was the most sleep I've gotten all week. 5 hours. Stellar.

Work has been alright. I have been doing sections of existing buildings for a new project. It isn't my favorite thing but at least sections are interesting. So just about enough work to keep me mostly engaged. This is a nice change.

I leave for Burning Man in 14 hours!! So excited!!! A whole week in the desert with fantastic friends, art and lots of fire. It'll be good to be in a place where I fit and don't have to censor my brain.
The car is mostly packed I'll leave tonight after work.

Probably more of an update later.

Weekend in Baja! Wheee!

We headed south of the border to San Felipe for the holiday weekend. (Finally. For all that I get comments from people about how many cool adventures we have, the ratio of ideas to execution is really pathetic. We have been talking about going to Mexico for 5 years, really quite lame. ) Borrowed oceansfire 's Wrangler. Roads in Baja are unpredictable conditions and Jeeps are fun to boot.
We were running pretty late (work, doctors etc) Friday afternoon so we decided to wait til Saturday morning to leave. Good plan. We took the scenic route through Ensenada and then east over the twisty M3 to San Felipe on the gulf coast. A nice little tourist town. A bit ramshackle but, that can be/was fun too.

Quick run down.
~ Beach camping, always fun and made more exciting by a ridiculously large tide differential that landed high tide Sunday afternoon about 6 inches from the tent.
~ Walked up to an odd little shrine above the town. I forgot how very, very catholic Mexico is.
~ Steve rented an ATV for a 1/2 hour and had much dune hopping fun. I passed, but regretted it later. Maybe some other time/place.
~ Tourist strolling and eclectic dining. Some good some not so much.
~ Beach strolling.
~ playing in the very warm water of the Gulf of California.
~ poking around this weird 'harbor-like spot that only fills with water a high tide. A wide assortment, of type and age, of boats.
~ Dodging street and beach hawkers of all varieties.
~ A long and disappointing quest for ice cream. We could only find 7-11 type ice cream novelties and that weird Thrifty ice cream that Rite-Aids in the states sell. We settle for the latter.
~ We went touring down the coast a ways where we mostly found new housing developments in varied states of halted construction. One was actually being taken over by dunes. The housing boom and subsequent collapse seem to have hit the area equally hard.

One of the most notable features was the rather significant number of retired/older US ex-pats. I guess it was a convenient affordable option until late.