Breakfast

Okay, I have got to say something about the food:
My breakfast (at 2pm) is:
Two palm-sized chunks (torn off the loaf, as is proper) of baguette,
One (massive) croissant,
A banana, and
Some grapes that we bought from a fruit-seller in the Metro last night.
I have some butter (for the baguette) and some plum jam, which I am mostly ignoring, even though it's the best jam ever*, because the baguette is so good plain it's ridiculous.

In the States, when I have bread with butter, the bread is toasted, and is mostly the carrier for melted butter and cinnamon-sugar or jam.
In France, the bread doesn't even need butter--but this butter is outrageously delicious, and has (if I'm not mistaken) salt crystals in it.

Except for dinner, my meals have been bread and fruit, since I got here.
And yes, I get massive headaches and a cold and generally feel crappy when I eat bread. Only I'm not. I don't. Here, the bread doesn't bother me. At all.

I love it.

So, everything else aside, the museums, the gorgeous city, the beautiful language, the fashion, the people, etc., I would move here for the food.
And here's the crazy part: I'm trying to lose the anti-depressant** weight I didn't even know I was gaining, and I think I have a better chance of doing that here than in the States: My calorie intake in the States is at least double what it is here, even with Tuesday's lovely duck confit for dinner.
Maybe if I lived here, I would go back to my depressing, sedentary ways, and not move a muscle, and yet, I'd have to go to market every day to get my baguette, and that alone involves a walk, and from here***, possibly some hills†.
Even when I sleep past noon, I still end up walking a LOT, going to and from museums, and little markets, etc.

Anyway, time for me to finish my breakfast†† so we can head out again to Musée d'Orsay for some Vincent van Gogh!

==========

* I shied away from the plum jam the first time I saw it because it's a pale orange, like apricot jam, and I'm much more interested in red jams--but the raspberry was a little disappointing.

** Apparently, that happens: Anti-depressants make you gain weight--and if you up your dosage, or change meds, you gain more weight. I'm not happy with that. And I didn't even realize until I went to the doctor after several months of anti-depressant, and upping my dose once, and found that I was mmph pounds heavier than I remembered being.

*** Joël's house^ is--I believe--on one of the tallest hills in Paris.

^ The mystery of why Joël has such a large house (four stories, two guest rooms--well, one is mostly used for storage) in Paris is solved: It used to be a carpentry. When the rest of the houses in the area were tiny and built for the miners/quarrymen who were digging up stone for New York, I believe, this one was for a carpenter, and was huge. The family who sold the house to Joël turned it into a residence. Joël had to do (or, hire people to do) repairs on the house, such as lowering the first floor (the one above the ground floor) so that adults could walk upright in the first floor. Which is where we're sleeping.

† But not crazy, fault line hills--comfortable hills. Hills with a reasonable slope.

†† Sans Banana, actually. A bunch of bread, ten grapes, no banana. I'll bring it with me and have it for lunch. 

In Lieu of Something More Organized

Observations of Paris:

On the Metro, I am less able to blend in than anywhere else. The Metro is hot as hell, and I must remove my jacket, loosen my scarf, and resist the temptation to tie my hair up.

Not a typical scarf, perhaps, but this is what I saw this morning.

While I have seen one or two Parisiennes with her hair up (the number of people I have seen walking and eating), a Parisienne either wears her hair up or down. She does not tie her hair up on the Metro.*

And everyone just wears their jackets or sweaters and scarves as if it were as cool inside the car as it is outside. 

 

Also, in the subways--or rather, in the hallways from one line to another--one often walks up a flight of stairs, walks about 20 feet (no clue what is in metric), then walks down a flight of stairs, presumably going over tracks, or mechanical repair places, or something. 

We went to Musée Rodin today. I tried to text this to Facebook earlier, but I'm glad it didn't work: 

Rodin is such a good sculptor that when I went to take a picture of Madame A. C.**, my camera's facial recognition kicked in.

That's probably all I can handle tonight. I'll try to do something similar tomorrow (Musée d'Orsay for lovely, vibrant, colorful van Gogh!), but now it's freakin' late--nearly 3am--oops. 


Oh, PS: We have twelve postcards. The first 12 responses (on Google+ and Facebook) get them. To be clear, I won't count responses on the website unless we're ready to write them and send them, but we don't have enough responses from FB&G+. 

==========

* Laveana^ agrees: She says that in the mornings, you will sometimes see a woman doing her make-up on the Metro, but that's it. 

^ Joël's wife. We're staying with their family; Joël and Laveana, and their lovely sons Zachary, Gabriel and Benjamin (more commonly called Banjo). 

** Please note the terra-cotta lace: yes, it was behind a glass case, so there were reflections, but the detail on the clothing is exquisite!

Terra-cotta lace!

11/11/11

11/11/11, a set on Flickr.

I waited all day to post this. Maybe I should have started sooner. The second 11:11 has just passed, alas. Well, here we go:
Today, on 11/11/11, at 11:11(am), we (me, Holly, Beverly) had elevensies at 11th S and 11th E while wearing eleven article of clothing. There were eleven people on the corner, and our meal consisted of eleven pieces of food. (Yes, there were eleven elevens in those two sentences.)
 The Flickr set (above) consists of eleven of the photos I took today. They don't all contain elevens (that I know of--I need to check a couple of the crazy-people photos), but they celebrate the day's festivities.
We visited all four 11-11 locations: 1100 South/1100 East (at 11:11, there was a party there); 1100 South/1100 West (the only location with a house numbered 1100 on 1100); 1100 West/1100 North (the doghouse was approximately at 1100), and 11th Ave/1100 East (the cemetery--there isn't an 1100 North that far east).

That's what I did today. Oh, and I wrote a little.

New Year

It's been two weeks of not-posting. I apologize. Granted, Christmas/New Year can be some of the busiest time of the year for--well, for most people, but still.
Anyway, here I am. What shall I talk about?
I finished the Changeling game. I created an adventure, ran it for some friends, and finished it, and people had fun. It has the feeling of something accomplished. I might do it again. However, I seem to need a year for my ideas to percolate and truly form, so I don't know if I'll get to do the next story at the coming Vernal Equinox, like I'd like to.

I survived Christmas. I got some lovely things, and was even surprised by some of the things I got, and presents I gave to other people were mostly well-received. There's still a tree in my living room, and I'm not sure when it's coming down.

DP and I saw Tangled, which was mostly lovely, aside from the continued idea that, in order to be truly happy, a man cannot be less powerful than his woman. (And specifically, that if he is, she must correct the balance ... ) Seems similar to Virgin Power, in that regard.

And, I went to a doctor! Talked about all the various things wrong with me, checked my height and height, got my blood drawn. I have a large bruise where the needle went in the second time, and I get to get more blood drawn tomorrow very early, fasting. Because the doctor likes to get a baseline cholesterol reading, apparently ...
And then later this month, I have an appointment to get the results of all the blood tests ...
One thing that surprised me a little: I was telling the doctor about all of my vitamins and supplements, which include Holy Basil for depression, Omega 3-6-9 which helps with depression, and I'm currently "trying out" St. John's Wort to see if that will help at all. So, he asked about that, and I had opportunity to mention the diagnoses of Major Depression and Anxiety NOS. The part that surprised me was when he mentioned antidepressants. It's a free clinic, after all, and while I was pretty sure they'd be able to help with my purely physical things, I had forgotten that doctors prescribe drugs, and could prescribe antidepressants. So I told him I'd think about it, and then we talked about blood tests.
My thoughts so far are: I believe in making the diet work first, doing as much as you can with your nutrition, and if that doesn't help, then move on to supplements and homeopathics, etc., and then if that doesn't help, then look into antidepressants. Plus, I'm about to start seeing a counselor thanks to Voc Rehab, and I'd like to see what she says about it, before agreeing to medications.
Still, this year seems to be made entirely of new, because I'm seeing doctors and counselors. It seems amazing.

twenty-seven years

I'm sitting in the kitchen (pulled a chair in from the front room), keeping DP company while he washes some dishes and cleans out the teapot that I overboiled (a lot) the other night. We'll have breakfast at some point.
After that? I don't really have plans for today, which is okay in some ways. DP and I talked about going to Discovery Gateway, which I think is the plan with the best chance, considering I saw Sorcerer's Apprentice last night and The Last Airbender last weekend.
I am going to do fireworks tonight; it's been a birthday tradition for a couple of years now.
I had my family birthday last night, and it was good. We played Killer Bunnies just like I wanted (though we didn't get to finish the game), and we ate chicken and corn and mashed potatoes (with gluten-free gravy) and watermelon and gluten-free cake with homemade frosting, yay! Then we saw Sorcerer's Apprentice, which, except for the "Morgana le Fay is the most evil sorcerer in the entire world, and she's the Big Bad" part, it was pretty good for a full-length movie inspired by an animated short.

Anyway, have a lovely day, all. I'll chat with you more later.

Belated Updates

I meant to post something at the end of January, but that was a no-go. Apparently.
So, here we go:
I totally fell down on writing everyday, but I have concluded that it was the fault of Smith's no longer carrying the 3-pound bags of pretzels that I usually buy and then munch on while writing. In order to write, I need to snack; I need to snack a lot, which is why I need a three-pound bag of pretzels ... the wimpy little one-pound bags are completely useless.
So, I'm going to try looking harder (in other stores, etc.) for three-pound bags of pretzels, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, so that I can get back to writing.
And hopefully, if I can start writing again everyday, I'll go back to violining everyday ... I practice the violin everyday that I write. I don't know why.
I DID take pictures nearly every day last month, so that was exciting.
I also learned some fancy knitting: I can now do ribbing, stockinette stitching, and cables! (way cool!) After my bout of baby-knitting is done, I am going to tackle Celtic knotwork ... I'll maybe make some armwarmers, or something easy like that, with some Celtic knotwork all over it.

On something other than the projects front, I went on three dates in January: two first dates and one second date: the first-and-second dates were with the boy mentioned in my last post (who, by the way, Britta, is not the same boy that I told you about before ... ).
But, the other first-date: I went on a second date with him recently, and I think it went well. We'll see how it goes. At the very least, I know for a fact that he has not had any recent break-ups, so there's that.

The major thing that has happened so far in February was my Imbolc ritual: it was very major, and I think directly responsible for the fact that I have no brain right now. My friends/teachers told me that whenever they do major workings like that, and lose their brains, it's because the brain has gone to the Underworld (the subconscious) and is rearranging things there, and when it comes back, it will come back different in some way. (I hope I am saying this in a way that makes sense ... )
Actually, though, the fact that I'm posting alone means that my brain is probably starting to come back. So, hopefully in a few days I'll have 100% brain capacity again ...

And finally, I am getting guinea pigs soon. As soon as my mom figures out a good time to affect the transfer. I'm getting a cage, because my mom bought my sister an easier-to-clean cage (because she's ten), so I get the old cage, which is cool. So all I have to do is buy the water bottle and food dishes and the little stuff. And the renewable stuff (bedding, food, etc.) can mostly be found at Smith's, which is useful for me.

But anyway, I have to head out, pick up my paycheck, and go grocery-and-guinea-pig shopping! Yay!
Love you all!

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

It's a song in my church hymnbook growing up, and it was my favorite song ever. The song doesn't have all the verses his poem does. It's a bit much, altogether, but I still like it. (I'll admit, I mostly like the paganness of the first verse.)
But it's still a truth: you need to let certain things die, you need to give death to things that are holding you back. I think this year I am giving death to my lack of trusting; I know this year is about connections, and healing. I put an ad on Craigslist looking for friends, because I need more, but also because this year I am reaching out, and connecting with people, and looking for healing in embracing others, and not turning away from them. We'll see how that goes. (I admit freely I can be a lousy friend ... but I'm working on it.)
(For those who know/are interested, I drew a single card for the new year (this was for Samhain), and I got the Queen of Cups, reversed.)

My first goal for the New Year is to make my goals slightly more goal-like. They say you're supposed to make goals tangible things, to make them more achievable, and right now I have things like "make a new wardrobe". Blah. What does that mean?
I also have to find a way to do my everyday things (like practicing the violin and writing) on Sundays, which even in November, I only wrote on one Sunday, and then not very much.
I also had, I think, two others that I had been thinking about, and didn't write down, and now I can't remember.
That sucks. Hopefully I'll remember them, though.

Anyway, love you all! Have a lovely New Year's Eve!

Christmas

Happy Christmas.
I'm feeling better. (Thanks Nick!)

So, for explanations: I have three sisters (Emily, Brooks, and Libby), two brothers (Tyler and Joseph), and one "new" sister (Amia; she's a foreign exchange student living with my family for a year).
Tyler's doing a mission-thing for the LDS church currently, which means he was not here for Christmas.
So that's the people; plus my parents and grandparents (my dad's parents).

The traditions: Christmas Eve, we read about "the birth of Christ" in the Bible. We also do this Swedish tradition that I helped bring back to our family; my great-grandparents (on my dad's side) were Swedish (like, they came over from Sweden), and when they were alive and we had Christmas with them we did the "oolie-oolie-oolie-ay", which is the "we-don't-know-Swedish" version. It's an old Pagan custom, of course, adapted for Christianity and taken over by Santa Lucia, who is an Italian saint that got REALLY popular in Sweden for some reason, and the tradition involves the oldest girl-child wearing a crown of greens and candles (we use electric) and ringing bells, leading the rest of the family through every room of the house, singing and ringing the bells, to chase away the bad spirits and invite the good ones.
Papa and Mema were the only ones who really knew the song, though, so when they died, no one else could really do it anymore. So one Christmas, as a present to my dad, I talked to several family members, and got the music and the words and a rough phonetic pronounciation, and made the crown and the bells, and so now every year we do it.
(Long explanation, sorry.)
Also, we get pajamas every year on Christmas Eve (so we can sleep in them and wake up on Christmas in them), and an ornament every year--which, for the last two years, we've chosen names Secret Santa-style and made ornaments for each other. And we each open one present before going to bed.

So. For the Secret Santa, I got my sister Brooks, and Amia had me. I made Brooks a clay turtle ornament, because she loves turtles--and she LOVED it, which made me happy. Since we put all the ornaments on the tree, and then just pick them up and hand them to our person on Christmas Eve, I was looking at all the new ornaments, and there was this awesome Solstice-y one that was a gold ball, and a sun(flower) hanging from it (I'll post pictures once I'm back home), and that was my favorite (though there were other cool ones). And that was the one Amia had made for me! Which was awesome!
Our Christmas Eve presents, we usually open the present from our Secret Santa person, unless there's a reason not to (like I hadn't finished Brooks' corset yet, so she opened someone else's present), and Amia got me a REALLY nice copy of The Mists of Avalon--which is an AMAZING book!

Then, in the morning, we do the rest of the presents.
It was gratifying, because everyone really liked my presents. I got Joseph a play-dough set; Libby got a locking diary (to go inside the hollow book I got her for her birthday); Brooks of course got her corset (or, will get as soon as I'm finished); Amia got cute earrings with snowflakes on them (she's from Bolivia and Colombia and hasn't seen a lot of snow until getting here, so she loves things with snow); and I got Emmy a CD that took FOREVER to find (Remember That I Love You, by Kimya Dawson).
So that part was awesome.
Emmy got me a GORGEOUS bottle and Brooks got me an AWESOME wind-chime thingy.
I also got a super-suvvy (soft&fuzzy) robe and new slippers (my old ones were dying).
But the best presents were an air popper (for popcorn), which makes me SOOO happy (I LOVE popcorn), and a violin, which I didn't ask for, which makes it even better, in a way.
The violin was my mom's, for a while, when she was younger. So that's really cool. She also got me a book and a CD and things like a shoulder rest and rosin and useful violin-y things.
It makes me super-happy. It also means that my goal of learning to play the violin this year will be a LOT easier.

So, anyway, that was Christmas.
Our other tradition is to go see a movie in the evening; we saw Bedtime Stories, which I liked more than I thought I would.

On a quick non-Christmas-related note: I think my relationships-situations are looking up slightly. At least, I've had conversations with my complicated, and we've talked about things, which helps. (And I got to talk about the boy who doesn't like me enough, which made me feel a little better about it.)

Anyway, I'm less depressed/worried than I was before, so yay.
Happy Christmas. I love you all.

Gods Rest Ye Unitarians
(sung to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen)
Gods rest ye Unitarians
Let nothing you dismay
Remember there's no evidence,
There was a Christmas Day
When Christ was born is just not known
No matter what they say
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

There was no Star of Bethlehem,
There was no angel song.
There couldn't have been three wise men;
The trip would take too long.
The stories in the Bible are
Historically wrong
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

Our current Christmas customs come
From Persia and from Greece
From solstice celebrations of
The ancient Middle East
The whole damn Christmas spiel is just
Another pagan feast
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact
Oh tidings of reason and fact

Home

I've been home for all of ten seconds, and already I'm depressed.
I get to sleep on the couch because "I don't know where else to put her" (and I quote). I get to find my own pillows and blankets (and the house is freezing, as always), and there's no blinds on the HUGE window in the family room, so it's a good thing I remembered my eye mask thing. And of course my brother's going to want to watch TV at like 7 in the morning ...

Blah. I'm depressed. If it weren't for the fact that my aunts and uncle were coming in on Saturday, I would absolutely say right now that I'm leaving ASAP, which would be Friday. But they are, so I'm only seriously considering it, instead of deciding.

I'm so fucking tired of this shit.

But I love you all ...

Singing!

I LOVE singing!
My family didn't end up making it to the Solstice singing, because of the awful weather, but that's okay.
It was amazing, and I wish I had the ability to make a recording of us, and put it on the blog, but alas.
But anyway, I've really missed singing with the choir, so I'll probably join up again after New Year's. People in the Solstice choir kept asking me if I was going to join up again.
But I loved it. It made me so happy to be singing again.
So.

Also, I've added two new goals to my Big Fun Scary Goals, and I made a thingy on the right that lists them all, so I can keep track of them.
The new goals: Project 365, which is take a picture every day for a year. I've started up a new blog just for that (so as not to overrun the personal blog with the project, but I will post some pictures), and I'll put the address in here somewhere as soon as it's viable. Also, start seriously paying off my debts. I wasn't going to make that a goal, but ... it needs to happen. So.
Progress Report: the only thing to report on is that I've written or done writerly things every day since Wednesday, so that's three days in a row. (Yesterday I made a private blog for my writings, so when I'm visiting my family for the holidays I can still write every day, since my laptop's out of commission ... it counts as a writerly thing.)

Anyway, love you all!

Holidays and stuff

First of all, happy Solstice! It's coming up soon. (I'll probably post something specifically for that, though, so ... )
To any friends who are in the area and read this and who I haven't told yet: I'm singing on Friday (tomorrow) at the Unitarian Church (1300 E 600 S, roughly) at 6pm, there's a Solstice service, it'll be fun. Come! Hear me sing! You know, if you can.

Umm, but I'm really excited about that. I haven't done choir stuff in a while, so it's exciting for me.

Also, I'm starting a writing project of faerie stories. I'm borrowing heavily from White Wolf's Changeling: the Lost for now, but that's just to make it easier to just write. I'll edit it later and make up my own stuff, but it'll continue to be influenced by C:tL, because it's an AMAZING game!! (I've been reading the book so I know how cool it is and whether or not it's worth playing, because my Sunday Storyteller wants nothing to do with it, and I think that's bollocks. Especially having read part of the book.)
But anyway, I'm not entirely certain what form the writing project will take; I started thinking it would be a series of short stories, but I started putting words down, and now I'm not certain. Maybe it'll still be a series of short stories, but that are more connected than I was originally thinking. Who knows?
But I'm excited about that.

Also, back to the Solstice singing: I told my family about it, and my dad called me last night looking for slightly more details, because they had another thing to go to that night, and .... the shocking part was, my dad was wondering if they should cancel the other thing entirely, or if they would be able to do both!
This is a shock to me, because I was traumatized in my childhood by my mother choosing to go to a Garth Brooks concert instead of my choir concert ... it was very sad for me, and I guess taught me to expect that sort of thing to continue happening, so I'm very happy that my family's coming to hear me sing. I just wish that some of my other family members were going to be showing up sooner, so they could come, too. (Like, my sister's coming into town on Saturday ... I can't remember when my grandparents are coming, but probably not tomorrow ... and the rest of my family isn't coming until after Christmas, so ... )

But anyway ... I'm poor as fuck, by the way, which sucks ass.
We'll see how that goes. I guess I just need to get another shitty job (something I'd been avoiding) that still gives me enough time to write. I really do want to fix up the couple stories I have so I can try selling them ... It would be nice to get a couple rejection slips. I'll feel like a real writer then.

hey, it's a holiday ...

First, important news flash: I was NOT depressed yesterday! Yay!

But it's Thanksgiving, which is a "family" holiday, and it's the first Thanksgiving EVER where I'm not spending it with some version of family (the best was probably when I was with Nick, and I spent it with HIS family, because I actually liked his family).
That's the thing. I'd be depressed if I was spending the day with my family (or worse, if I was spending the weekend with my family) because they'd manage to make known to me all the ways in which I am a disappointment--or they would ignore me, either way.

But the only plan I have for Thanksgiving is something later tonight where I'm likely to know one person, and meanwhile all of my friends are off frolicking with their families, and I'm effing depressed.

I fucking hate holidays. Or at least Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's ... it's the time of year I am most forcibly reminded that, for the most part, no one really sees me ...