Where I Belong

In the early days of knowing Nordic Boy, we were both working in the THEE-AH-TAH, and would often be working late nights. I had less responsibility than he did at work (and in every way, really), so I was most often getting home and getting my snooze on while he worked into the wee hours of the night. One night, I was sleeping on my little futon pad on the floor, when my apartment buzzer went off. It was probably around 2 or 3 in the morning. I got up and went to the intercom, and it was Nordic Boy. "Hey, you up? Want to go get something to eat?"

The fact that I said something to the tune of "heck yes" and got myself out of snugglesville tout de suite without hesitation because I was so excited probably should have made the fact that I loved that dude an open and shut case, but it didn't, because I was young and silly and not thinking about such things. And also I had a boyfriend, but let's not get into that. I got dressed, ran down the stairs, and hopped into Nordic Boy's chariot.

The chariot was an old-ass, beat up red four-door truck that Nordic Boy had bought for $350. There was a gigantic hole in the floor which not only was useful for those who wanted to watch the pavement rush past whenever they looked down, it also caused exhaust to blow gently into the interior of the back seat. Thus, you always had to have all of the windows down, even in the dead of Illinois winter, if you wanted to breathe, which we did.

Luckily, that night was not an Illinois winter. It was a warm, humid Midwestern summer night, the kind of night that I started to yearn for as soon as I moved to Seattle. We drove around in search of a slice of pizza, and then we drove some more.

From that night on, Nordic Boy started showing up a night or two each week, always in the middle of the night, always ringing my apartment buzzer and saying "hey, you up?" And I always was, even when I wasn't, and I always got dressed, ran downstairs, and got into the truck.

Most nights we didn't go get something to eat. Most nights we just drove out of town and into the surrounding countryside and stretched our window-side arms out of our windows and sang along to the music on the radio. We didn't talk much, but we smiled a lot. We never held hands or kissed, but it felt like we had.

When I think about that year now, I think of it as such a lonely time in my life. I felt estranged from things and people in a way that I hadn't ever felt before. I was living alone for the first time. I had been going to a school that didn't fit. I had a boyfriend that felt wrong. My friends were drifting away and I hadn't made many new ones. I wanted my life to go in a direction, only I didn't know which, and even if I did, I didn't know how. Even though I didn't know it, I was sad.

Except I wasn't sad all of the time. Some things did make me feel happy.

"Hey, you up?"

(Ho Hey, The Lumineers)

Out of captivity

It is official: Nordic Boy has been released back into the wild, and has seemed to regain healthiness! I too have managed to remain healthy. We just about didn't know what to do with ourselves.

We celebrated by going out to dinner on Friday night at a restaurant that I suppose was romantical, but really I could barely see my plate in there it was so dark. I haven't dated in a while, but really, don't we want to see who we are getting moony with? If I were dating now I would arrive equipped with a headlamp.

We spent the rest of the weekend catching up with our lives. We had lunch dates with friends, and went to a party on Saturday night, and spent lots and lots of time chatting each other up. We went over to Delium's to hang out and the two of them got going on their home improvement talk and it felt so right to be so, so bored with it again. What would my life be like without hearing my two favorite dudes bore me to death talking about r values? Oh, and although of course the best thing was that my beloved was feeling good again, I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that I was so happy that he was up for cooking again. I love my dude's cooking much more than my own cooking. Just on a selfish note.

It started back to downpouring outside as well, after many days of gorgeousness. My world is feeling normal again.

Consumables #62

Ok, so not to jinx anything, but I think healthiness might be returning to my household now. Nobody move! I don't want this house of cards to fall.

So many consumables! Lightning round, ready? GO

Books!
Beautiful Thing, by Sonia Faleiro
Nonfiction by a journalist, Faleiro, who befriends Leela, a smart nineteen year old who dances in a bar in a rundown section of Mumbai. In Leela's world of small-time gangsters, unscrupulous business owners, drunken customers, sex workers and fellow bar dancers, Leela holds a certain status as a top bar dancer after running away from her home of poverty and abuse at the age of 14. The author does a good job of showing the ways that Leela finds some agency within a life of vicitimization. I'm going to tell you right now, the back stories and childhoods of Leela and her coworkers will make you sad and sick right to the bottom of your stomach.

So Much Pretty, by Cara Hoffman
Two young women go missing from a rural community in upstate New York, and the crimes go unsolved as the residents and police assume that a drifter must have done it. Stacey, a journalist who has moved there from the city, tries to uncover the truth, which proves to be a difficult task since she is deemed an outsider by the entire community. Meanwhile, Alice is a 15-year-old genius who is being raised by her idealistic parents who have escaped city life in search of a better way to live. Much more than a crime novel, this is a commentary on insulated rural life, the acceptance of violence against women, and the capacity for people to deny the truth in order to protect the status quo.

The Sigh, by Marjane Satrapi
I wonder how hard it is when someone has so much well-deserved acclaim for something that they created to go on to create other stuff. Hell if I would know anything about that. Fans of Persepolis who are looking for something similar might not be happy with this one. This is a short fairytale style story of a girl who meets a spirit called The Sigh, and what transpires from this meeting. Totally old-fashioned yarn.

The Mighty Miss Malone, by Christopher Paul Curtis
Great middle grade book about Deza and her family, who live in Gary, Indiana during the Great Depression, and their subsequent migration north to Flint, Michigan (holla!). I loved how this story was true to the historical time yet didn't feel dated somehow, and how Deza's family goes through so much while remaining loving and committed to each other, yet do not escape their cirumstances unscathed. Good stuff.

Movies and teevees!
En El Cama
Chilean arty film where a couple has a one night stand. The whole thing takes place in their hotel room. There's sexy business, and talking. Also sexy business. Then talking.

Wendy and Lucy
Michelle Williams plays a young transient woman who lives in her car with her dog. She's right on the edge of being able to survive, and when one thing takes a turn for the worse in her life, everything unravels quickly.

Long Way Down
TV documentary series that chronicles Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they go on a motorcycle road trip that starts in the UK and ends in Capetown. Could Ewan McGregor be any more charming, I ask you? No.  No he can't.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Three stories about love and relationships, starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni being all gorgeous and stuff. I am sort of mesmerized by Loren, although her characters are totally unbearable to me in a way.

The Immortals
I'm sort of cheating since I only half-watched this one. It didn't hold my attention so I did crosswords through most of it. It's greek gods and stuff. You know how it went.

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls
Did you know that there is a country duo called the Topp Twins consisting of lesbian twins who dress up and do old school comedy novelty songs along with political folk songs along with regular country songs (with yodeling), who have been wowing audiences in New Zealand for the past 30 years? I did not. Now I do. I want to hang out with these ladies.

Louie
I know I am late to the Louie party so I have nothing new to say on the subject. That Hot Chocolate song that he uses as the theme song is the ear-wormiest song EVER, though, is it not?

Dangerous Living
Documentary that tells the stories of various people in various non-Western countries (Egypt, Honduras, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Namibia) who are persecuted as they struggle to live their lives as gay women and men. I appreciated the overall picture that the movie paints, but I wanted more depth with each of the people interviewed. It seemed like such a broad swath of stories to try and tell.

Sherlock
Benedict Cumberbundy and Tim Canterbury are back to solve crimes in Season 2! As we sat watching this via Masterpiece Mystery, me working on a cross-stitch project, and Nordic Boy hacking up a lung and hobbling to the bathroom, he looked at me and said: "look at us and then mark your calendar: today is the day we officially became old people."

Circo
Documentary about a family circus (an actual one, not the Bil Keane kind) that has been in operation since the 1800s in Mexico. The Ponce family drives their circus caravan all around the rural areas of the country, the entire family pitching in to put on the show, which has been passed down parent to child for generations.

Girl with a Dragon Tattoo (American version)
The brutality towards women made me want to throw up, it was seriously so hard to watch, and now that I did, I want to unsee it. I did think Lisbeth was a freaking badass which I appreciated, but still. I wish I hadn't seen that.

That is it, people! Time to rock into the weekend!

End of the week stuff

This is how the rest of the week turned out.


Nordic Boy is still hacking up his lungs on a regular basis (OMG when will I stop talking about illnesses?). But he's getting better.


I discovered that some people, when they mean to say something like "I'm not sure I want to deal with that yet," say instead "not sure I want to rip the scab off of that one." WHY. Why would you say that? Please, stop, for the love of Lamont Sanford. No one should say that phrase ever. And while we are on the subject, I only recently became aware of the phrase "open the kimono." SHOO-WEE, really? Cease and desist, STAT.


I kept having conversations this week where I would talk, and then people would respond as if I had said something totally different than what I had actually said. It kept happening! This makes me wonder if I actually know what I am saying half the time. Let's not refer to this blog as evidence about that question.


I started an art project and then realized that I miscalculated the steps involved so I had to scrap the whole thing and start over. Most of the time I enjoy doing art for its own sake and not for a result (which is why I don't ever keep any of my stuff or I end up taking it apart or painting over it or whatever) but this time I was hella pissed. My exclamation of MOTHEREFFER could be heard throughout the land yesterday. I am pretty sure you probably heard it.


I have been listening to Selena Gomez, because apparently I am 12 years old.


Yep. A banner week.

Chillin' followed by illin'

Hey, so guess what? Nordic Boy is sick again! And this time we thought it might be meningitis, and lo, it was the scariness.

(It is not meningitis).

I knew things were awry when Saturday night, after a day of warmth and sunshine, Nordic Boy could not get warm. Nordic Boy is always warm, hence the name. He don't need no stinking 70 degrees. The next morning he woke up at 4am, a sweaty, feverish mess, and his entire spinal column and neck were seized up and his neck glands were all swollen up. He couldn't move at all. He slept for the next 17 hours, and then doctor consultations about meningitis happened, and all sorts of monitoring was done. It was SO SUPER FUN. I got to test out whether or not I could bodily lift my dude out of bed onto his feet (I can! what a badass) and other such good times.

The short of it is that he is ok, after 24 hours all of a sudden his back and neck didn't hurt at all anymore, and now he just seems like a dude with a cold. No one knows what sort of virus that shit was but there you go. Me, I think it was an alien parasite from outer space.

I still have a cough from my influenza a couple weeks ago so we are just a lovely, lovely set of humans.

This really was not a huge trauma at all, but it did make me think about the people who are caregivers to loved ones all day every day.  I doff my chapeau to every last one of them, dudes. For reals. Pour one out for the caregivers, y'all.

Maybe one day I will talk about something goofy again, and also something not involving the medicines. Let's hope.

Birthday, Bainbridge, Bloedel, Biogirl

Gah! I am still being kicked in the arse by worky time, so you'll have to endure more photos from me today rather than my usual ramblings. This weekend was Biogirl's birthday and to celebrate I did three of my favorite things. Walked, ate, and got arty. One place we traipsed was aboard the ferry to the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. Here's some photogometry to like, prove it.

(matchy shoes for ferry riding)

(which one of us is Katherine Hepburn and which one of us is Henry Fonda?)

(why Mr. Carson, what are YOO doing heah?)

Happy birthday, Biogirl! You are the lovliness.